Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: The World’s Tune
by hihgspeddogger
Summary: Insu Adsara was a peaceful land, up until the Elgyem appeared. His actions were kept a secret, the only traces of his work the anomalous mazes he left behind. In just a few days, Pokemon were too scared to even leave their cities for fear of running into these Mystery Dungeons. Someone had to do something. That someone happened to be Omiah.
1. Prologue

**World's Tune, Prologue**

 **Effio**

 **Server Room**

"So you're telling me we bought those Silph thingamabobs for nothing?"

I pause my fiddling with the giant contraption to sigh and look at the menacingly tall man standing next to me, mentally preparing myself. I know I should be used to Dom's garbage by now - every two or so hours, he makes a note to come interrupt my work and my train of thought because I'm not doing something right. This time it's the expensive and quite difficult converters the team had just bought (set us back well into our grant), that I had just put into the machine and tested briefly without success. "Well, I don't know. They're supposed to go in this place," I point to the exposed electrical jumble before us, knowing fully well that Dom doesn't care, "but they still seem to be connected wrong. Just hold on a second before we give up all hope," I say. Another exasperated sigh escapes me, this one maybe a little more forward than it needed to be. The boss man, instead of going on one of his usual mini-tirades, gives me one last stern glare and walks back into the monitor room, shaking his head. I wonder if I'm going to lose my job over this, being the one unable to get them to work. But to be fair, Silph Co. doesn't exactly make their stuff consumer-friendly.

I return to my task at hand - if this thing doesn't get fixed, it's likely the end of the already waning program. Maybe I misconnected a wire somewhere? I inspect the cable bus running into the Silph ICs that Dom was on about. Everything seems correct... Something like this could take hours to fix depending on where the problem actually is, it could even have been when I was putting the thing together last week -

 **Hey, didn't you leave the machine unplugged earlier?**

A voice pops into my head and I turn to see Gardevoir sitting in a small foldout chair in the corner next to the server wall, staring at me. Thinking back, yes, I did. More or less. The power socket itself is actually disconnected from the rest of the machine, so just plugging it in and flipping the switch won't work. So, in a sense, she's right. Can't believe I forgot about that, though...

"Thanks," I nod to Gardevoir as I shuffle over on my knees to the back corner of the machine. I tug at the the power socket and it comes right out, bringing a couple of cords with it. All I need to do is grab the one that's loose and connect it there... and flip the machine on, and surprise, things immediately begin to whir. As in, that's actually pretty surprising. Is it going to work? The monitor on the left of the machine lights up and I spring up to stand in it's view, watching a whiz of messages fly past. Everything seems to be in working order - not the machine itself, yet, but the parts I'd wanted to test... Then, simultaneously, all the fans start to kick on high.

 **Uh, Effio... sir?**

I glance at the Gardevoir behind me, who is staring at the giant hulk of metal and wires with a wary gaze.

 **Something... escaped.**

"Uh?" I grunt. "What do you mean?" A wave of panic washes through my body as I imagine the worst of what she could have meant. My optimism had long since been worn thin by this arduous project, and I guess expecting to see it work without a hitch was out of the question.

 **Sorry, I don't really know how else to describe... Wait -** The Gardevoir closes her eyes, evidently concentrating on something. A couple long seconds pass before she suddenly relaxes and goes slack, her back sliding down the chair. I gasp and rush to her side to keep her from falling. The terminal, out of the corner of my eye, spews dirty red alerts while the hundreds of fans strain loudly to cool the strained machine.

"Hey!" I call into the other room for a bit of help, propping Gardevoir further up on her foldout chair. A little pang of guilt gnaws at my stomach. When I'd asked for a psychic to help with the integration, I wasn't expecting to put it through much, certainly not this. And, making matters that much worse, Gardevoir isn't even my own, it's my friend's...

Then, just as suddenly as it all started, the whole system shuts off. The various LEDs lose power, the lighting on the top of the thing fades, and the din of the fans dies down, clearing way for the sounds of movement and footsteps from the other room.

"What's up?" Ingo, who happens to own the Gardevoir sitting next to me, pokes his head through the door, luckily right as she wakes up and looks frantically around.

" **What happened?** " Gardevoir and Ingo ask at the same time.

I realize my heart is pounding in my chest - Gardevoir's reaction, combined with the ominous implications of the speeding fans and bright red error messages, spooked me clean. I give another sigh, gazing through the now-darkness at the terminal that had just been lit up a few seconds ago.

 **Did I do wrong...?** Gardevoir asks me as I back away to stand before the terminal again.

"No," I mumble.

"What do you mean? What'd you do this time?" Ingo repeats from the doorway, his head now accompanied by a couple other curious coworkers.

I grab the microreactor cable and slide it slowly out of the machine, not wanting to be surprised if it were to somehow turn back on or something. I turn back to the blank monitor, fully perplexed. "I don't know..."

My coworkers leave the doorway and let the light from the monitor room fill my workshop, leaving me with the Gardevoir, who still seems a little spooked. Something worked, if but briefly. And I couldn't figure out whether that was a good thing or not...

 **Omiah**

It's dark. I can't see anything. My eyes will not open. My head will not turn. I am numb. I can't feel anything. It's like my body isn't even there. But for some reason, I'm not panicking, as I'd expect myself to be. Am I just dreaming? Where is this? Is this what happens when you die, am I dead right now? No, that's absurd, that was a quick conclusion... What killed me? I don't remember anything killing me, so I guess I'm safe. Maybe. I'm just dreaming, why else would I be stuck in a dark, empty void? What's my subconscious trying to tell me now?

Wait... Yes, okay. My ears still work, because they can pick up the faint, soft humming of a deep pad... from somewhere. Now I have some sort of stimulation, something to cling to other than the emptiness I feel elsewhere. And it's slowly getting louder. I can hear multiple tones melting into each other, blending into one consonant chord. It's a chord I recognize, but I wouldn't be able to identify it if I tried, even though I use it pretty often when I'm writing.

As it continues to grow louder... yes, now I can feel, but what is this feeling? it's like my mind itself is becoming warm - but not hot. The heat is not aggressive. Instead it's just soothing, immersive - am I being put into a bath? Or something? It replaces the empty void of black, even though I still cannot see. And then... an entirely different feeling - I can *sense* a presence, the weight of a new being brushing against my own. There's something unknown here with me... that's a little off-putting.

 **Oh, so you're a music person.**

I would've screamed a little, if I could have, but no sound comes through my mouth. That came out of nowhere... It was deafening, too. Well, not deafening, technically... It was like it came straight into my mind, bypassing my ears entirely.

 **Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't really mean to startle you!** The voice apologizes. It's significantly quieter this time, and I'm not completely out of it now. Is that a woman? The voice sounds female, but I'm not sure where it would be coming from... And I can't respond to it, I can't make any noise at all.

 **Right now you're making a lot of noise! I'm not even sure how, either.** The voice insists, to my surprise. What's going on here? Is she... is she reading my thoughts?

 **Well, of course!** she says. Obviously. How could I have been so stupid. **What, have you never been around a psychic Pokemon before?**

A psychic... Pokemon? Pokemon... Have I heard that name before? ...I can't put my finger on it. But if whatever it is is psychic, I guess this all makes a little more sense.

 **Wait... Are you telling me you don't know what a Pokemon is?** The voice is confused, but I'm not sure why. No, I don't know exactly what a Pokemon is. Am I _supposed_ to know what a Pokemon is?

 **Well, yeah! they're everywhere!** She says, getting louder again. **Y'know, unless... Hold on, this may feel a little weird.**

I cringe back, instinctively dreading whatever comes next. I can't help it - I have no way of stopping this... entity, or whatever she is, from doing whatever it is that "may feel a little weird". Call me crazy, but it's like I'm sitting in a dentist's chair.

And then, not a second later, it happens: she enters my mind, or something. That's the only real way she can describe it - all of a sudden, something other than my own thoughts swim through my head. Like how i could feel this person just appear in the dream. Around me the volume of the soft tones increase, but their enveloping hug is not much compared to how weird having someone look around in your brain feels. She was definitely right. It's almost like she's unraveling my mind, undoing its twists and turns, searching for something in there.

 ** _What?!_**

Good Jesus Christ! I didn't think the voice could get much louder, but apparently it sure can given she just scared my heart three meters out of my chest. Moments later I can still *physically feel* the ringing in my ears, only fading into the noisy pad in the background. Only then can I contemplate what happened... She found something in my mind that surprised her, that's for sure... God, I hope it wasn't what I think it is. There's a bunch of potentially embarrasing stuff I don't want people seeing in here, why'd she have to tread all over my privacy?

 **So...** the voice says. I flinch (or I would have if I had the ability to), even though it's back to it's normal volume. **There aren't Pokemon where you come from?**

Oh. Was that the surprising thing to her? Half of me relaxes because she wasn't spooked by something embarrassing, and the other half of me is curious, now. I'd never heard that name, Pokemon, until now, and apparently it signifies something important.

 **Something important...? Pokemon had better be important, I am one!** The voice says with indignation, then mellows again. **Oh, Arceus above, I must have gone too far...**

Too far into what? What is a Pokemon? What is _she?_ I just want answers, especially if she's making such a big deal of it.

 **Well, we're already halfway in... I hope my mistake wasn't _too_ bad...**

What mistake did she make? I'm so confused!

 **Okay. Omiah, listen.**

Wait, how does she know my name? I don't think I ever revealed that. Not willingly, that is -

I can't fully explain, but... I need your help. Well, no, I should say that *we* need your help.*

Who am I helping? What am I helping with? Again, she leaves me only with questions.

 **It'll become pretty clear. Just hold on, we're almost through...** she pauses for a second, leaving me to wonder. Only for a second, though. **Oh, that's right! Can I ask you a few questions?**

A few questions? I mean, I guess. I though I was the one with all the questions.

 **I just want to learn a little more about you. I won't ask embarrassing questions, can you promise me you're being truthful?**

Why does it matter? Why does this... voice want to get personal? It's not like I have anything interesting to say, in fact I'd go as far to say that -

 **Oh, stop. I saw a couple things when I was mindwalking, you are not boring. Speaking of, what's your deal with music? That'll be my first question to you.**

How... Well, I mean, considering this person is actually a psychic, it wouldn't be hard for her to get that I like music a lot. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I'm alive right now.

 **Yeah, I definitely got that. But then, how do you describe what you like to listen to?**

That's pretty broad. I like to listen to a lot of things. I mean, most of what I listen to regularly is electronic music... Songs made up of the things humming into my ears right now, but with synthesizers that actually move instead of just droning on a single chord.

 **Ok, you've lost me. Electronic music?**

I get the feeling that this voice hasn't been around much. You'd have to live under a pretty heavy rock to not know what electronic music is. Then again, I get the feeling that that's how she felt about me when I didn't know what Pokemon were... Okay. Electronic music - music that's based around computers, sounds produced by synthesizers and samples.

 **Synthesizers?**

Yes, synthesizers, like the things that have a bunch of knobs and sliders and stuff. They make a bunch of super weird sounds, but if you learn how to use them you can manipulate them into pretty much anything. And make it sound good.

 **Interesting. And then, I got that you make this... electronic style of music as well?**

I make music... it's not very good, but I like doing it. It doesn't compare at all to what some of the artists I like do. I'm halfway proud of it - on half of me isn't too keen on sharing it with people, but at the same time the other half leaps at the chance to bring up music.

 **Can you remember any of the songs you made, off the top of your head?**

Remember... Yeah, I can do that, I commit basically anything I hear more than once to memory - and when I work on songs, I hear them a _lot_ more than one time. The 1-chord falls on F minor, the chord progression is pretty simple... back and forth from 1 minor and 6 major, using 7 major as a transition. I used a muted beep sound as the lead and made the main melody sound semi-middle-eastern. Then added a slow-motion beat with a bunch of filtered hats. Trap's pretty easy to make.

As I imagine the song, the pads in the background fade out almost immediately, distracting me a little. What I hear instead is, in fact, the song in question. The solid, bass-driven chorus with the flitting melody, the modified electric keyboard playing chords every other beat... and the different sections of the song, too. After the introduction to the main theme and its two-faced progression, a transitory phrase bridges the first two parts. When the bass backs off, so does the keyboard, and a cold pad (one I'd originally meant to solidify the keyboard's chords) enters the foreground. Its timbre waves rhythmically up and down while the keyboard, halfway into the background, develops the new melodies and finally drops back into a second chorus, where an unmodified keyboard backs it up, the lead beep plays a countermelody, the drum pad clicks and tings with a combination of pitched hats and cymbals, its kick followed by the loud bass, and a sine sweeps slowly from the top range down. This part is a lot more thoughtful and somber than the last, which I can't really say was intentional, but it happened. I guess the section sets a sort of hopeless, unknowing feeling (sort of like what I'm feeling in this weird dream) more permanently than it did in the dichotomous section before. And then it goes back into the original progression, all melodies ended and replaced with a gritty-sounding effect synth that I modulated randomly. I added a healthy dose of reverb onto the chord pad here to make it sound super spacey and far-out, and I think it did the trick. Drop the drums, loop it a couple more times... And that's the song. I did a fade out with a noise sweep and stuff because I couldn't figure out an ending.

 **So you made this?**

If I could have, I would have nodded. Giving vocal confirmation (or whatever the alternative to vocation now is) to that sort of thing seems awkward. I made it in an easy-to-use loop-based workspace with a bunch of synth presets I thought sounded good. Trap isn't that hard to make, I'll reiterate.

 **Okay, I have no idea about what you just tried to explain, or any of your thought process when the song was actually happening, but that was amazing. I've never heard anything like it.**

A warm feeling spreads through me, quickly stifled as I tell myself not to get so worked up over a compliment. It's not even all that impressive -

 **No! ...I thought we had more time...**

Now what is she on about? At first I thought she was going to reprimand me for berating myself, but is there another problem?

 **God, Arceus, I hope music is enough to go off of... hey, would you say that the music you like defines you?**

What does she mean by that? Like, am I supposed to be grouping myself with stereotypical "EDM"-lovers or something?

 **Oh lord, never mind. Good luck!**

 _a/n - this is edited from the original prologue that was pretty clunky. on mobile it hates me tryingto format line breaks so it might read oddly, and then i'll probably decide that this version is clunky as well and begin the declunkification process again. i need to make my stupid author's notes formatted consistently as well, whoops_


	2. Chapter 1, The Mysterious Cave

Chapter 1, The Mystery Cave

Mello

To all but a trained ear, the humid air would sound as normal as it always does. Gentle rustling of leaves in the wind, faint cries of other probably wild Pokemon as they roamed, and the trickling water of the Tritus spring. While my ears aren't exactly trained, I can still notice the faint but unwavering drone coming from within the cave in front of me. Part of me wants to explore inside, do a little bit of spelunking, but the other part knows that there are definitely other Pokemon in there, Pokemon that hold an advantage over a Luxio. In any case, I need to find a place to rest for the night. I can't see the sun through the canopy above me anymore... The cave could be a good spot. That is, if that weird humming isn't to bothersome. And there aren't any surprises. I shudder to think about the last cave I encountered - it was a while back, maybe even when I was a little Shinx, but I remember being mobbed by a bunch of feral Geodude and having to be saved by my friend, who just so happened to be a Tangela. Then again, I didn't have, then, the smoke ball I now carry in my satchel. That, and a bunch of other berries and stuff. _I'll be okay. The worst that could happen is I run away._

I step through the cave's overgrown entrance and follow its path. It's extremely dark here with my only sources of light being the cave mouth behind me and the glow of the flame orb through the cloth of my satchel. I turn around and take it off. _I wish I had hands,_ I think as I feel around the bag, trying to stay away from the heat of the flame orb. Nothing feels like the smooth, hard surface of the luminous orb I need... Maybe I'd forgotten to pack one. I wasn't really expecting to go into a cave when I left home for Augue, didn't prepare for that... It doesn't matter. _My eyes will adjust eventually,_ I assure myself, slipping the satchel over my shoulder and padding further into the cave by the low light of the flame orb. _And I haven't noticed any ferals so far... I'll be okay._

I follow my ears through the twists and turns of the small cave path. I can tell I'm getting close - the noise resonates clearly through the cave, much clearer than it was outside. It's unlike anything I've ever heard - a lot smoother than the relatively bright sound of my sonarum that rides along at the bottom of my bag. And its low pitch hasn't changed since I first noticed it, speaking with a volume that's constant as well.

There, sprawled across the hard stone floor, is a sleeping Riolu. The clean, dark sound seems to come from him, even through his unconscious state... Must be a Riolu thing. _Did he get attacked?_ I wonder as I dash to its side, throwing off my satchel again. It doesn't seem to be hurt, but I preemptively nudge an oran berry out onto the ground anyway.

"Hey!" I speak, the first time I have since I left the main road. "Hey, wake up!"

The Riolu continues sleeping, his loud hum unfazed by my words. I try again, this time reaching out and pushing at its shoulder. The tone reluctantly wavers off a little, and before it can correct its pitch I take my chance, shaking the Riolu's shoulders a little harder. The sound dips sharply and its volume fades. In my excitement, however, a little bit of electricity slips through my front paw and diffuses through the Riolu. The sound gives a quiet little blip in protest as the Riolu's body contracts, then fades again. Its eyes flutter open. _I guess that works..._

The Riolu, with its tone now fallen back to be the cave's din, props itself up and looks all around it, visibly confused.

"Are you okay?" I ask. It starts and swivels around to look at me.

"What?" it - he - asks. His eyelids couldn't go further apart if they wanted to.

"Are you okay?" I repeat for him. "You were just passed out here."

The Riolu shifts away from me slightly, his wide eyes crossed with confusion. "Did... did you just talk?"

"Uh, yeah." What's that supposed to mean?

He blinks at me a couple of times, incredulous. "No way..." He whispers. The hum bubbles to life again for a couple of seconds.

"Are you okay?" I ask him a third time, even though I know the answer. I just want to know what the problem is.

"Y-yeah," stammers the Riolu as he warily studies me.

"You're acting pretty odd, Riolu. You sure?" I pry, picking up the bag and searching for a persim berry.

"Riolu... That's not my name," he mumbles. His furrowed eyes are vacantly focused on something way off in the distance.

"Yeah, but it's your species."

"What do you mean, species? I'm a human..."

I stop my rummaging through the bag to stare at this mysterious Pokemon. "What?" _Human?_

"I said I'm..." The Riolu releases a sharp gasp as he looks down at himself. "No _way..._ "

The drone fills the cave once more as he shifts fully upright and looks down at his body. He reaches out and pats the tufts of fur on his thighs, then messes with the growths handing from his temples. His hand slowly rises to be in front of his face, and he turns it around, studying it as if it was unfamiliar to him.

As he inspects his seemingly new body, my brain puts things together. "So you're telling me you transformed, then?" He woke up, thought he was a human, then witnessed a Pokemon talking to him, then was surprised by his own body. What other possibilities are there? I mean, maybe he's just crazy...

"Uh..." The Riolu is more focused on the plates of metal on the backs of his wrists than he is with me. He knocks on one to confirm its material, the perplexed frown on his face deepening. "What... am I?" he asks me.

"A Riolu." Guess that answers my question. Sure explains why he's so shaken up...

"Right..." He continues looking over himself for a few more seconds, then stops and observes me again. "What are you?"

"I'm a Luxio. Gosh, you're acting like you've never seen a Pokemon before!" I chuckle nervously.

"Pokemon?" He repeats. "But..."

"But what?"

He hesitates for a second. "Pokemon don't exist..."

Now it's my turn to frown. _Well, neither do humans!_ I almost blurt, but manage to keep myself silent. If he used to be a human, maybe he literally had never seen a Pokemon before... But Pokemon would exist alongside humans, right? Isn't that how it used to be, way back when?

It's probably best not to press more into that topic. If his case is true, he doesn't need a bunch of complicated questions from me. "What's your real name, Riolu?" I try instead.

"Uh..." He stops, as if trying to remember. "It's... Omi."

"Alright, Omi. I'm Mello."

The Riolu nods. I can tell he's still trying to process everything right now, and, again, if what he's saying is true, there's a heck of a lot to process. _What a bad day he must be having,_ I think to myself.

And it's about to get worse.

A low rumble and the clunky scraping of rocks fills the air, startling us both. Not to be outdone, Omi's hum swells brightly from its dull hum. I fall over as the cave floor shakes menacingly, heaving and pushing as if something was going to burst from its surface at any moment. Omi struggles to stay upright in his sitting position.

Then it stops. Still, once I regain my bearings I quickly jump up, not exactly ready for whatever rock Pokemon may appear.

"Hey! We should leave!" I tell Omi, slinging the bag back over my shoulder. "Can you walk?"

Omi's eyes are still wide, but this time I don't think it's with fascination or surprise. ...Well, maybe surprise. "Uh, s-sure," he stammers as he gets up. "What was that?"

"I don't know, but I don't want to find out, either. Come on."

Fountain Cave BF1

I try my best to remember the way I came, but something's off. I swear I remembered there being a turn a little before I found Omi, but the passage is a lot longer than that. I wonder if some part of the cave collapsed in, opening another path or something. An oddly straight path, though... We follow it until it abruptly opens into a vaguely square-shaped room that splits off into a number of different passages, one off of each wall. _Yeah, that's definitely not how I remember it,_ I think to myself. It's oddly synthetic, the way the cave is now... Someone came in here and carved things out or something, I swear.

"What way?" I hear Omi call from behind me.

"Uh, just follow me," I respond, trying to sound confident, going towards the cave passage on the opposite wall. We trot across the path, me with my attempt at a blank face and Omi with his eyes furrowed in concentration as he watches his feet, probably trying to get the hang of walking. How much different is a Human from a Riolu, anyway? From what I've heard, Humans walk on two feet, just like Riolu.

A sharp turn takes us to the left for a little further until it opens up into another one of the square rooms. This one holds no other exits, but a big indentation in the ground catches my eye. I walk over to inspect it, finding an odd staircase carved into the rock below, large enough for us both to descend.

"What is a set of stairs doing in the middle of a cave?" Omi asks, now beside me, staring down into the darkness below. "Are... Are we inside someone's home, or something?"

I ignore him and continue down the staircase. Maybe, like Omi suggested, it'll lead us to the dwelling of some unknown Pokemon, one that can show us the way out. Who knows, maybe the staircase is the way out?

Fountain Cave BF2

A little yelp comes from Omi as he trips over his own foot and comes tumbling down the stairs, headfirst into me, knocking us both to the floor.

"Ah, sorry..." Omi quickly gets up and offers me his hand, then realizes that won't help if I don't have another hand to grab his with.

"You okay?" I ask as I get to my feet. He doesn't look like he's hurt, just a little embarrassed.

"Yeah, uh, just getting used to... new feet," he responds, looking down and rocking onto his toes.

We landed in a new room like the ones before, equally empty except for two passages, one before us and one to the left. I decide to try the one in front. _How long can I keep this up?_ The fear of getting lost is much realer now - I was pretty confident I could find my way back out when there were about 3 different forks in the cave path, one of which wasn't even big enough for me to take, but now I'm treading new ground...

My blood runs cold as we round the corner. There's another room, a few steps away, but this one holds a figure; another Pokemon, obscured by the darkness. It doesn't seem to have noticed us yet... I pad forward, quiet as possible, trying to see exactly what it is, praying to the lord above that it doesn't notice Omi's nervous humming. Ah, Lord, I'd forgotten about that, tuned it out...

"What's that?" He whispers to me, taking the hint not to make noise. Apparently he noticed the figure, too, watching it from over my back concernedly. Suddenly he realizes what he's doing. His eyes close in focus, and after a short moment the tone fades into silence.

As I creep towards the mystery Pokemon, it turns around. Its eyes glow red under its brown shell. "Kabuto," I whisper back to Omi. A rock Pokemon. I see them all the time back home and they're all very passive, at least for me, but this one... There's something about this cave, maybe my instincts, maybe the atmosphere itself... Something that tells me its inhabitants won't be friendly, that this little Kabuto will attack us. I steel myself over for a battle. One Kabuto shouldn't be too hard, I tell myself. Even though it's got the advantage.

I step into the room and it notices almost immediately, whipping around with a startled screech and scuttling towards me on its little legs. Wasting no time, I charge up and let loose an arc of electricity that connects at the shell and shocks the Pokemon, briefly illuminating the room. It continues unfazed - I did almost nothing to it... I barely jump out of the way of a wad of muck, letting it hit the rock wall behind me with a wet squelch. Once again I charge up, then spring towards the thing with outstretched claws. It reorients itself and I smash into the back of its shell. We skid across the cave floor as I discharge into it, then pounce back away. I watch it, expecting it to get up again, but it doesn't. Right, Kabuto are water Pokemon as well! That was a lot less of a hassle than I thought it was gonna be. I turn to find Omi standing back in the passage.

"Did... did you just kill it?" He stammers, staring at the little thing lying on the ground.

I laugh. "No, definitely not, it's just knocked out."

He eyes me suspiciously before stepping through the mouth of the passage. He pads carefully towards me, giving the little thing a wide birth and keeping a wary gaze set on it, forcing a chuckle from me again.

"Don't worry, wild Pokemon are too dumb to play dead," I assure him.

"Wild?" He repeats quietly.

"Yeah. One that isn't civilized, like me, or you," I explain briefly, then turn around. "Come on, lets leave." I walk into the only other passage the room holds and follow it, glad that the ferals around here are relatively weak. I didn't even have to use my smoke ball that fight!

The next room holds three different passages, one of which we quickly find leads to a dead end.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Omi asks as we turn around.

"Uh huh," I lie, avoiding eye contact. Now I'm kinda regretting my decision to enter this cave in the first place, especially now that it changed... But then, Omi probably would still be asleep, humming away, attracting all kinds of wild Pokemon to himself.

I try another path and follow it to another room, with another unnatural flight of stairs. _Maybe we're making progress,_ I think as we descend once more.

Fountain Cave BF3

I hear another yelp from Omi as I reach the landing, watching him roll head over feet down the remaining stairs. He finally lands on his face at their feet, his humming growing a little. I can't help but laugh a little. He shoots me a hurt glare as he stands, rubbing his nose with his hand.

A new screech catches my attention and I spin around to find another Kabuto building up an attack. I jump out of the way and its ball of dirt flies directly into Omi's face, knocking him back on the ground. I struggle to stifle another snort as I watch him shake himself off - I'm not prepared when it tackles me to the ground next to him. The little thing digs its claws into me and I immediately feel it trying to drain my energy. In retaliation I let loose a little jolt that flows through my body and into its legs. It quickly detaches, falling to the ground with a clack. I roll away, but it's on top of me again, latching onto me.

It's then that I realize there are two of the little buggers in here. As one holds me down and drains me, the other charges up another muck shot and fires it straight into my face while I thrash around. Dazed, I can barely feel the one on top of me dig further into my skin. But then it begins to seriously hurt, the six little pointy feet piercing through my skin... I discharge into it again and it can't help but detach.

Suddenly, more rumbling throws me off. It isn't like it was before - the rock below shakes much more violently, threatening to give way. I dive aside on wobbly legs just as the ground beneath me bursts, allowing a giant rock horn, then the face and two giant segments of an Onix to slide into the chamber.

Now I have reason to panic. This isn't something I can handle... I probably could've managed the Kabuto, but my electricity will do literally nothing to the rock-ground combination of the Onix. There's also a little bit of a jump between a couple of tiny crabs and a giant stone monster.

Using the time it takes for the Onix to figure out its new surroundings, I frantically search the bag for my smoke ball and grab it in my mouth. I bite down on it to activate it, releasing a cloud of smoke that diffuses into the cave chamber, but it's too late by then. The ground shakes as the Onix unearths itself more and swings its head at me. Its horn drives hard into the side of my stomach, sending my vision into stars and knocking me backward. I hit the cave wall with a whump and roll to the ground, vaguely trying to fight off the unconsciousness.

Omiah

Augue Cave BF3

Through the smoke, I hear a dull grunt and watch as Mello's black figure flies through the cave away from the new presence. Whump. I can physically feel his body hit the side of the cave... "Mello!" I cry, running through the thickening smoke towards the source of the impact. The hum that I'd been focusing on hiding away slips into existence again, rising uncontrollably with my new sense of panic. Unfortunately, the giant rock monster notices... " _Just a dream, just a dream,_ " I breathe as the ground shakes as the thing pivots to find where the new noise is coming from. It prepares to take a blind swing, rearing its head to the side. _It'll be okay,_ I tell myself quickly. _I'll just wake up when it hits me..._ I take a dive but get hit anyway, and my hum flares even brighter as I hit the ground tumbling sideways. _...or not._

I bump into the wall and I feel the thing shift in the ground beneath me again, preparing itself for another attack. _It... it did this to him._ A desperate rage slowly builds inside me, right next to the fear. The hum inside me grows louder and brighter, buzzing with my emotion. I realize that I can't be scared of this stone behemoth, the one that probably just killed the only friendly contact I've had in this world... I can't afford to run. All the options point to one word, resounding loudly within my mind. _**Fight.**_ The word doesn't overpower the immense vibration of the humming, but instead it guides it to a purpose. _Now's not the time to be the useless idiot you always are_ , I tell myself. _You'll fight... the only way you know how._

But before I can, it takes another blind shot at me and sends me careening away across the cave floor. I rise and shake off the dull impact. It didn't hurt that bad. _Needed a running start, anyway..._ My tone grows even louder, fully drowning out the terrible rumbling from beneath me as the monster rights itself again. I begin sprinting back toward its shadow in the smoke and take a calculated leap into the air, legs outstretched towards it. The flying side kick connects with one of its segments, my hum emphasizing the impact with a massive _**BOOM**_ as the monster rocks backward. It cries out in protest and I know I've done some damage. I drop to the ground, barely landing on my feet, the drone still resonating deep in me, louder than ever, feeding off of my rage, and in turn feeding my purpose. I run after the source of the cry in hopes of smashing the thing's head in. It slowly heaves through the ground, shoveling the rock away from under my feet. I fall and barely have time to roll out of its way before it smashes its horn into the ground where I just was. For a moment, it struggles to free its horn from the ground. _It's stuck! Now's my chance,_ I tell myself, springing back up to my feet. The tone swells as I rear back a punch. Another big, bassy BOOM thunders through the cave as I hit it as hard as I possibly can. It's blown from the ground in front of me, hitting the opposite wall with a giant crack. The rest of its body goes limp, each of its segments falling to the ground with another crunch that I can hear even over the hum thundering loud in my mind. It takes me a moment to that the thing's horn broke off, lying buried sideways in the rock a few feet in front of me almost obscured by the smoke, a huge gash in the ground where it used to be.

It takes a bit of time for the adrenaline to fully flush itself from my body, during which I stand simmering in my half-rage, half-disbelief. _Did I just do that?_ The smoke begins to clear and I can finally see the full carnage the thing wrought. Huge chunks have been ripped from the ceiling and walls, even above where its head now lies. Piles of crushed rock and dust lie strewn across the cave floor. The thing's body wasn't even all the way out of the ground, either - the segments, eight of which made it out, lead back into the stone where it burrowed into the room. I decide I don't even want to know how big it was. All that's important is that it's not hurting us anymore.

"Hey!" I hear a strained cry from behind me and see Mello's body slumped against the corner. His eyes are the only thing that move, following me as I dash over to his side.

"I didn't think you could fight," he gives a great effort to say over the volume of my tone, which I had been ignoring. I try to calm myself down, removing its fuel and leaving it to simmer down. _I don't need to fight anymore._ The Luxio tries to get to his feet but his legs buckle under him. I barely catch his heavy body as it falls sideways.

"God, are you okay?" I grunt, struggling to prop him up to a stable position. He's really big, standing as tall as me, and not to mention really heavy.

"Sure." His voice wavers. "Just... get me an oran berry from in my bag."

"A what?"

"One of the round light blue berries."

I unstrap the bag that is somehow still hanging off of his shoulder and find a bunch of berries of all different shapes and colors, most about the size of an apple. The light blue ones far outnumber the rest of them, though. I reach in and take one into my hand. _No thumbs... That's gonna take a little bit of getting used to... Can I even call this thing a hand?_

"Find it?" Mello asks.

I respond by offering him the berry. "This it?"

He takes the whole thing in his mouth and bites down with a squelch. Almost immediately he perks up a bit, his slouch rising and his expression washing over with relief. "Thank you," he says through what's left of the berry in his mouth.

I just nod, airily wondering what I would have done if he'd been knocked out or killed by the giant snake... Speaking of which, "What was that thing?"

"Oh, it was on Onix," Mello tells me. "We should go, before others come." He begins trotting lightly towards one of the new passages, then sees the Onix's horn buried in the ground, jagged where it ruptured from its head. "Good Arceus, you broke the thing's horn off!" A short chuckle sets me a little bit at ease, making it easier to manage the hum which struggles against my efforts to keep it silent. At least Mello will be okay.

Eventually Mello leads me through a couple of rooms, walking with purpose. It's almost like nothing happened... I follow him close behind, not wanting to run into another one of those things alone. I have to jog a little to keep pace, and as it is right now, my jogging is pretty awkward... Once we enter the room holding the next staircase, Mello visibly relaxes.

Fountain Cave mouth

Once again, I trip on the God forsaken stairs. Thankfully it's more towards the bottom this time so I don't have far to fall, but I still manage to land on my face.

As I get up and rub my nose, Mello chuckles. "Don't humans have two feet, too? Shouldn't be that hard!"

I glower at him. "Yeah, but humans also have heels..." It turns out, having heels makes a giant difference - when I walk now, I'm always on the balls of my feet, like I'm about to start running or something. With a heel, I had a sturdy way to connect my ankle to the floor, but now I just feel unstable. My balance is offset as well, which doesn't help me with steps.

I realize I can actually see things now. Just ahead is a little round exit to the cave - no oddly angular rooms or corridors to path through, hopefully no other hostile Pokemon to almost kill us...

Mello bounds outside into the evening air, bag flailing heavily from his side. He must be feeling better, I think to myself as I run after him.

Outside, the sun's location is obscured by the trees, but I can tell by the orange shadows of clouds overhead that it's nearing nighttime and I'm probably missing a nice sunset. A light breeze brushes through my fur, especially the blue fur on my thighs. I chuckle as I realize it looks like I'm wearing shorts, and I briefly ponder whether or not Pokemon wear shorts at all. Or shoes. For the first time in a while, I am barefoot in the grass. It feels pretty odd to only have three toes for the grass to stick up.

"Well, we made it out," Mello comments. "All thanks to you, of course."

 _What? Oh, the Onix thing._ "I mean, you were the one who led me out, so..."

"Actually, to be honest, I had no idea what the right path was. No idea where I was going. I've never seen a cave like that. It's like it changed shape after I found you," Mello admits with a sheepish smile. "Still, though! You took on an Onix! How did you even do that?"

"Uh, I don't know."

"I thought you said you were a human! When did you learn to fight?" He asks, looking at me with bright eyes contrasting against his black-furred face. Briefly I think about how odd it is being smaller than this catlike creature.

"I, uh, took Tae Kwon Do for a few years..." I was never very good at it, though - I actually despised fighting. Having to go up against an opponent, having them take advantage of each and every one of the mistakes I make, was just too stressful for me.

"Tae Kwon Do?" Mello repeats with his head slightly ajar.

"Yeah. Just basic martial arts," I explain, then elaborate a bit when his expression doesn't change. "Like kicks and punches. You know -" I demonstrate for him, throwing a little punch. Now that I don't have to tuck a thumb in, it's a lot easier to ball my hand into a fist... I front kick the air, chambering my knee and curling my toes up to hit an invisible target with the ball of my foot. Pulling them back is a lot easier when they aren't little stubs. It's almost like I was made for fighting...

"Oh, okay." He nods.

"Wait, so does that mean you believe me?" I ask suddenly, realizing what he'd said. I had kinda figured this Pokemon thought I was a bit crazy, especially with my super farfetched story. I mean, I'm not exactly sure that I'm not crazy right now.

"Huh? Oh, yeah," he answers casually. "I guess. Why?"

"It's just... if someone came up to me saying that they'd transformed into a human, I'd be calling them crazy..."

"Well, it does seem a little odd... But then, why else would there be a random civilized Pokemon lying in the middle of an empty cave? And you were really confused when you woke up. I could tell," he laughs.

Yeah, I was pretty confused when I woke up... I'd been convinced it was a dream then, especially when I realized I didn't have the right body, but now, especially after the fight with the Onix, I'm not so sure... Everything is as vivid as ever, if not even more so.

"So, what are you going to do?" Mello poses. "I mean, you don't have a home to go back to if your home is in the human world..."

A frown makes its way on my face as I realize I don't know how to answer that question. I hadn't given much thought about that (hadn't been given much time to think about that). I guess my first step is to figure out where I am so that I can get back home, then figure out how to return to my normal human self. But then, I don't know how to go about doing either of those!

The hum wiggles from my hold again and pulses quietly into the evening air, earning me a concerned look from Mello. "I don't really know," I shrug. A familiar feeling of dread spreads through my body, but this time there's a helpless aspect to it that sets it permanently solid at the pit of my stomach. I wonder if I'll ever actually see my home again, or my family, or anything...

"Well," Mello snags me from my thoughts, "I guess you could just come with me to Augue. It's a city that can't be too far away from here. I'm headed to meet a friend, she won't mind more Pokemon."

I lift my head and stare at him. "Wait, really?" A little bit of pressure releases from my head. That solves a bunch of my problems, actually... I had assumed that, once we got out of the cave, I'd thank him and we'd part ways and I'd begin wandering aimlessly or something. Now, at least, I can follow around someone who knows what they're doing.

"Yeah. But not right now, it's getting pretty dark. I'm kinda exhausted, I've been walking all day..."

We sit down and Mello breaks out a few of the big berries from his pack. He hands me one of the big blue ones (oran berries, I think) and one that looks a lot like a peach, both of which I eat ravenously - choking down the oran berry's off-putting taste and not stopping to savor the peach's flavorful sweetness. _I guess undergoing a change like that would make me hungry,_ I think as Mello smirks at me.

"I've got more," he says, tilting the open bag towards me to reveal the rest of the berries.

I shake my head. It was nice enough of him to give me the two he did. "I'm good." _I'm not that hungry anyway,_ I tell myself, falling back onto the grass. The sky has already begun to darken - stars shine faintly through the gaps in the clouds. I study them. It's never been this clear, I don't remember ever being able to see them this well! They twinkle through the vibrant red sky, unhindered by the atmosphere below them. At least from what I've seen, I can tell that these Pokemon must not be as advanced as humans are, so there probably isn't a bunch of smoggy garbage in the air to obscure the stars, like back home. Maybe it won't be so bad being here...


	3. Chapter 2, The Mysterious Forest

**Mello**

 **Fountain Cave mouth**

 _There was no alignment to the sounds. They did whatever they wanted, not bothering to pay attention to what another was doing. There was no sense, just jumbled noise. No one voice could be focused on. They all played and shifted constantly and uniformly - but not so, because somehow, they were all different. It was a controlled chaos, forming a mesmerizing collage that couldn't be described. That is, until one of the voices changed. It defied the entropic ambience surrounding it. It stood out, became louder, changed shapes... Suddenly, as it was the only thing to pay attention to, that voice became the centerpiece. It decided to follow a pattern, a slow melody. It was simple. It was wistful. It was... reminiscent. Reminiscent of something that didn't exist. Through the jumbled mess, it repeatedly belted out its straight, orderly melody... But something was missing. The voice invited the others to join it - it wasn't complete alone, like a normal melody would be. It needed more than just single notes... -_

I wake up with the melody looping through my head, immediately alert and trying to comprehend what just happened. It was just a sea of muted noise, churning and changing all together, then that one voice floated to the top and set sail. It wasn't like any other melody I'd ever heard - all the musicians passing through Oresta were so focused on showing their talent, so my experience was with the complicated stuff, not the simple stuff... Now I lie with a melody bouncing around the walls of my brain restlessly and relentlessly.

I have to play it.

I get up and grab my satchel, almost frozen against my paws. _I forgot to put the fire orb back, didn't I?_ I think as I dig through its frozen contents. In fact, the little ball of flame sits in the ring of rocks I'd made last night, surrounded by the ashes of sticks. My sonarum might need a little warmup time, given it had been sitting in the cold with nothing to keep it warm. _It's okay, I guess..._ The berries, at least, are better off cold anyway. I scoop them out of the bag and place them atop the frost laden grass.

Below the berries and few orbs is a round wooden box, the most valuable thing in the satchel. At least, to me. Before I remove it, I walk over and bat the flame orb out of the ring. It leaves a wide dew-y path in its wake, the new drops of water reflecting its orange light. I set the sonarum next to the flame orb (but not too close!). The thing's pitch changes when it's cold, and I don't necessarily want it shifting upward when I'm playing it.

A sniffle from behind me makes my heart skip a beat. I wonder what in Arceus' name made that noise as I turn around - then I remember Omi. He lies belly up in the grass on the opposite side of the campfire, stirring gently in his sleep. I realize he might've heard the jingling of the sonarum's handle, I wasn't exactly trying to be quiet... I sigh, realizing that I'll definitely wake him up if I start playing, so I'll need to go a little into the forest. And move the stupid flame orb all that way, too...

But luckily, it looks like I don't have to. "Morning," I greet once his eyes come open.

In the span of a second or two, Omi's brows furrow, raise, then mellow. He probably forgot he wasn't alone as well. Slowly he props himself up on the grass, reviewing his surroundings. "Hey," he says through a yawn.

I look back down at the instrument in front of me. "Can I try something on you?"

"What? What do you mean?" He asks, pivoting back to me. His eyes fall upon the sonarum as well. "What's that?"

"It's a sonarum."

"What's it do?"

I tap the high string in the middle with my left paw. The thunderstone's power flows through the metal string and into my arm for but a second before I pull away, releasing a buzzy tone through the acoustic hole into the air. Omi's eyes brighten with interest.

"How does that work?" He asks me.

"Well, there's a thunderstone inside it connected to the strings, and by adding my electricity to the mix, the thunderstone makes a noise." I can tell he's still confused, but I have other things to do than just explain the whole thing to him.

I begin to play what's on my mind, remembering exactly how it went. _Started high, then walked down - no, it skipped a note then went up one, ended on a lower note..._ After just a couple iterations, I get my paw to play the melody correctly. *This is the first time Omi's heard a sonarum* I think, smiling with the joy of showing someone my most passionate pastime. "Sound good?" I check his reaction, but instead of awe or something of the like, his face shows... concern?

"Play that again," he says, eyes narrowed on the wooden box. He reaches up to stop his temple flap from swaying before I return my attention back to the sonarum.

As the notes leave the sonarum, a second, familiar deep noise fades into the air... Now it's my turn to be confused as I realize that Omi, in his concentration, has begun to accompany the melody with his own tone. It shifts gradually from the humming he'd made in the cave yesterday to an energetic but deep tone, playing exceedingly low notes, much further down than my sonarum could hit. I look at him warily but continue playing. His gaze is still fixed on the sonarum, but I can tell that he's lost in thought. His tone begins to shift in pitch as I reach the end of the melody. It holds the first note of the bass for a short while before switching again. I sit in wonderment as, slowly but surely, Omi makes his bendy way through a countermelody, a bassline. It fits perfectly. Simple as it is, it adds a new layer of complexity to the melody.

The tone tapers off as he realizes I stopped playing, leaving him to wonder as well. "Where'd... Where did you hear that?" he asks slowly. His eyes shift from the sonarum to my own with a blank expression in them.

"In my dream," I respond, matching his confused gaze with one of my own. *He recognizes it?* How does that make sense...?

Omi doesn't comment. "Play it again," he requests instead, looking back to the sonarum.

I nod and press back down on the button. My paw brushes each note as I try to further mimic the tapering effect of the voice of the original melody. This time, Omi's pattern becomes more complex as well, making octave jumps, cuts, syncopated stabs... It begins, I realize, to give the melody I play a little bit of what it had been missing in the dream. It gave more perspective on how the melody was actually supposed to sound, making certain musical ties more apparent than if the melody were alone.

Even after I finish the melody, Omi continues with his tone, eyes narrowed in concentration. He goes bobbing through a couple seconds before falling off and silencing himself. Our eyes meet again.

He speaks first. "I think I heard it sometime... when I was a human," he explains unconfidently. "How do you know it?"

"Like I said, I heard it in my dream last night," I tell him excitedly, my mind filling with the implications. _Is that what human music sounds like? Has the dream always been about that melody, and is revealing itself now that someone who knows the melody is here? Or maybe Omi sent the song to me, somehow... but that's a psychic type thing._

"Psychic..." He mumbles, further losing focus. My cheeks heat as I realize I've been wondering aloud. "What do you mean by psychic... type?"

At first, I frown. *He doesn't know what a psychic is?* But then, if he hadn't seen a Pokemon before, how would he know about Pokemon types? "It's just a type of Pokemon," I explain. "There are a few of those. They normally have to do with how they fight."

"What type am I?" he asks.

"Fighting."

His face falls in disappointment. "Well, that's boring," he mutters. I let out a snort. "What are you?"

"Electric."

"Yeah, that's a little more... exotic..." He sits in the dewey grass, looking down to the ground, seemingly lost in thought.

 _What else does he not know?_ I wonder to myself. If he doesn't know literally anything about Pokemon, I've got my work cut out for me. I picture him walking through the streets of Augue, confused as a Spinda, asking me nonstop questions about what Pokemon is what. That won't happen, but if it does, I'll just deal with it. It's fun to show another Pokemon something they don't know about, fun to see their reactions. Omi'll probably do a lot of... reacting. He's going to be in for a shock when we get to Augue in any case.

Speaking of which, "We should head off. I'd like to get to Augue before the sun sets again."

Omi snaps back to attention. "Oh, we aren't going to eat first?" He says, a little sullenly.

I nod towards the colorful pile of berries next to the sonarum. I brought enough to sustain myself for a few extra days, so feeding him shouldn't be a problem. "Yeah, of course."

 **Omiah**

 **Augue Forest**

My legs hurt. Not as much as they should, but it's getting to the point where it's annoying me. I'm definitely not the most athletic person, my legs almost never see work other than to walk the stairs at school. Mello didn't tell me that we'd be walking up a mountain... I couldn't really see it through the thick canopy we've been walking through this whole time. But then, who am I kidding? If he had, I'd still have come with him - what else could I do? At some point walking always just starts to completely suck, especially at an incline like this. Hopefully that point doesn't come before we decide to stop.

It's been about four hours since we set off for this "Augue" place, and the sun is almost at its peak in the sky. It's a little hot, in contrast to this morning, but only a few yellow rays of sunlight make it past the canopy above us. The trees aren't very dense, but each one of their branches spans about a good 40 feet, collectively slanting to match the mountain's slope. No area is left uncovered - it's like a big green ceiling.

Of those four hours, we'd been traveling upward for about one and a half. Mello said something about the mountain being called Et Augue, for the city. He also told me about Et Arcus, due west, and Et Stiria, the tallest one in the north. Apparently they form a triangle on this continent, or whatever they call it, with a big lake in the middle. Mello lives southwest of where we are in a smaller town called Oresta. He didn't tell me why he was going to Augue, and I find it odd that he would leave without his parents... but I don't really care, just as long as we get there eventually. That's a pretty big gesture from him, to lead a complete stranger with him on his way to the city. And feed them. In fact, I don't think I know anyone else that would do that, from what I remember. I feel like it would be kinda rude to pry...

What scares me is what'll happen when we reach Augue. Mello said that he would take me to see his yet-unnamed friend there, but I don't know for how long that'll last. I suppose... will I need to get a job? What'll that be like? Do Pokemon even have jobs? ...What's this culture like? Is it _anything_ like what I'm used to? I've never had an actual job before, never experienced anything like this. Then, I've never experienced _being a Pokemon_ before. Battering the unknown with meager questions won't really help. I'll just have to see what happens. Go with the flow, right? ...But what happens if I do something obviously stupid around these people? Piss off the wrong person? I wonder how aggressive other Pokemon are. _I mean, if Mello is this nice, other Pokemon must be, too_ , I consider, making myself feel a little bit better.

"Omi?" Mello speaks for the first time in a while. I realize he's stopped while I was lost in my mind.

"Yeah?"

"Do these trees look... familiar to you?" He asks in an odd voice, head now on a swivel. I can't see his face, but a deal of concern emanates from him.

"Oh, well, I mean, I haven't really been paying attention," I admit.

"Okay..." He hesitates before continuing on, me behind him.

Now I have a new reason to worry. Is Mello lost? Are we going in circles? Does he even know where he's going in the first place? I never saw him take out a map or anything... Maybe he just knows the while way by memory. It feels like there should be roads to travel on between these towns, especially if they're so far apart. Why not just use one of those?

 **Tainted Forest BF1**

First I notice the change in ambience. The natural din of the forest no longer lingers around us. The air becomes heavy with the burden of an unknown danger. The light that came through the canopy seems muted, now, somehow. The only noise that enters my ears is that of our soft footsteps (pawsteps?) in the grass as we proceed. We'd passed some kind of threshold, and now it seems like the forest itself wants us out. ...It reminds me of the cave yesterday...

Mello notices it too, his demeanor shifting almost immediately. Instead of the concern from before, waves of apprehension seem to roll off of him. "Hey, Omi? You feel that?"

"Uh, yeah."

"I say we move quickly," he tells me, picking up his own pace. The aches in my legs have give way to a new urgency, agreeing silently with him.

There's only one way to go. The large trunks of the trees towering over us assist the now-thick underbrush in forming a path through the forest. It seems as though other people - Pokemon - have walked through here before, leaving behind a narrow trail that we now walk through. Or maybe the forest is trying to guide us out of it. ...Both of my theories come back flawed when the underbrush opens sharply up into an angularly rectangular clearing, holding another path on the side to our left. _Just like the cave._ Again, we have no choice but to follow the unknown path. _We're gonna get way off course,_ I think about Augue, looking at Mello. _He's already thrown off..._

As we trot briskly through the trail, I hear something behind us, rustling across the forest floor. Through the entrance scuttles a many-segmented bug with a bunch of little legs, about half my size, with the horn on its head pointed straight for me.

"Hey!" I start, alerting Mello to the new foe. Almost immediately he turns around and looses an arc of electricity at the thing. It stops, dazed, and I heatedly decide to take the opportunity to run over to it and bring my heel down on its head... Bad idea. It flicks its head around and the back of my ankle comes down on the thing's hard, pointed horn. A sharp stab of pain pulses up my leg. The hum reflects it with a bright stab of its own. I fall over, now unable to use my right leg. Luckily the kick does it job as the thing's round head hits the grass with a _whump._

The hum, which had been silent since the odd interaction this morning, lingers with the pain in my leg. Inwardly I swear. _I'm gonna have to walk on this thing..._ I prop myself up and look at the unmoving bug on the floor, a red bruise already forming on the underside of its head. "That's a pretty big centipede," I comment, my mind trying to stop Mello's attention from falling on my foot.

"You mean Weedle?" He stares at my foot anyway. "That probably left you with a poison," he remarks, sticking his head into the bag.

My right leg doesn't seem to want to cooperate with me. It dangles as I try to stand up, and my hum protests when I try to put weight on it, so I end up standing lopsided on one foot, balancing against a thick trunk next to us. Mello returns from the bag with one of those peach fruits in his teeth.

"Here," He leans forward and I take the berry from him. "Eat the berry. Don't stand on that, that won't help anything!"

I bite down on the thing and the sweet juice runs into my mouth. I'm distracted from the pain for a moment while I swallow the berry's soft flesh, absorbed in its taste. The low tone seems to be sated by the berry as well, quieting down. "Why'd you give me this?" I ask as I eat the remaining dripping half, then realize why. The lingering pain that spread through my leg is gone. All that I feel now is a dull throbbing in my ankle.

"It's a pecha berry," Mello explains. "It's supposed to cure poison from Pokemon."

I walk forward, taking good care to step over the bug and its poison spike. My leg is back to normal now, with only intermittent dulled pain as it receives my weight. "Huh. Thanks."

"Let's go, I want to get out of here," Mello says. I can sense, now, a hint of annoyance mixed in with the apprehension...

We continue, rounding a right corner before reaching another room. "Was that another Pokemon?" I ask Mello as he stops to weigh the two corridors.

He doesn't respond. Or ignores me. I decide not to say anything further.

He chooses the path to the right, leading us straight to another room, where Mello stops and frowns. In the middle of the room lies one of the rock staircases, etched into the ground, standing out in contrast to the all the green around it.

"See that?" Mello asks me, starting towards the staircase.

I nod, even if he can't see me. "Uh huh."

"It's like the cave yesterday. I've never seen a forest lain out like this, and there _definitely_ shouldn't be a staircase in the middle of it," he says. We go down the staircase anyway.

 **Tainted Forest BF2**

The area below is dark, invisible to my eyes which had just been receiving what light there was on the ground above. As we descend, however, it's like a fog lifts around us. Revealed is a landscape identical to the one that just surrounded us, grass and ferns covering the clearing we now stand in, towering trees bunched up in lines around its border, various thick bushes filling what space the trees don't. We don't end up underground like I expected, it's like we never truly left the floor we were just on... Does going down the stairs get us any further?

In any case, I'm somehow able to reach the new floor without falling down. Halfway I expect Mello to make a comment on it, but he doesn't pay much mind, too preoccupied with the situation at hand, too perplexed by the sight at the bottom of the stairs. I turn around to look back at the floor above us, but find myself staring the other way into more trees. The stone staircase isn't there anymore. * _Did that happen in the cave? I guess I didn't notice..._ * I think to myself, frowning. As I follow behind him through the small trail, I figure he's mad with me. I probably complicated things when he found me, and now he's bearing my clumsy burden as I go around with negative knowledge of anything about this world. _I probably wouldn't be happy if I was traveling peacefully alone and just suddenly picked up another man - well, Pokemon._ But then, I'd never travel alone anyway.

In any case, Mello doesn't need any more distraction from me. I consider how annoying my questions are to him.

"Wait." As I entertain my nervous mind, Mello stops. "We weren't just in here, right?" He sighs, looking around. I find that a few minutes have passed since I stopped paying attention. "Circles..." he mutters before taking a path to the left. I jog to catch up. _We won't get lost in here,_ I tell myself. I need to pay more attention if the forest is gonna be enough of a maze to confuse Mello. Luckily, we find our way to the next set of stairs through another room and trail.

 **Tainted Forest BF3**

It's like the staircase above, where the land just faded from my sight as I descended. From below I hear a _zzat_ as Mello zaps an unseen target. _He needs help,_ I realize, trying to rush down the stairs. Bad plan. I tumble down the stairs, straight into Mello, knocking him over into the new grass. Before we get up, a purple cloud of dust envelopes us, and by instinct I hold my breath in. My hum surfaces again, clear and dark, vibrating against my frozen lungs. I roll away from whatever it is and jump up when I can see clearly again. In the corner of the room by one of the trail entrances sits a giant mushroom. Except it has arms, shaped like mushrooms as well, each with a half-black half-red marking on the heads at the end. And a face, with eyes that hold the same kind of gleam I saw in the comparatively small bug's eyes. Around the top of its head float little purple particles, and I can guess what made the dust cloud I just got out of... Those are probably spores, or something, if they were made by a mushroom. I hear Mello coughing from inside the dust, then see him stumble into view. A puff of spores is released with each of his heaves.

By this point, I've been jumpstarted. Or at least, whatever's making the noise inside me has been. The surprise of falling down the steps and how I'm pretty sure I just knocked Mello into whatever kind if attack that was doesn't really sit with me well, and I can feel it... I can hear it. I need action. My attention returns to the mushroom creature, sitting in the corner, waiting for one of us to get close. _Oh, I'll get close, all right,_ I think to myself. I dash towards the thing, wanting to do another side kick. It quickly notices and bends its head towards me. Before I even realize, I launch myself through a plume of the odd purple spores, then strike it on the top of its head. A short _bap_ sounds from within me as my foot connects.

I drop to the ground and take a sturdy fighting stance, ready to give it more as it reels backwards, but my kick caused it to release more of its spores, so I take a step back. Behind me, Mello is still struggling to recover from whatever the creature did to him. I can't end up like that as well, or we're in trouble... I draw another breath and hold it, and my hum burns tight around my lungs.

I lunge into a jab, hitting it square in the face, then bounce back as it angrily swings at me with one of its arms, taking the extra time to refill my lungs. Before I can try another, the head of its mushroom arms begins to glow green, contrasting in the purple haze surrounding it. It realized, evidently, that its spores won't work... Though it doesn't touch me, I can feel it attack. An invisible force grasps my chest and squeezes it - but not really. It feels like pressure on the inside, like it's trying to take something in me. It startles me into exhaling and I stumble away from the thing to avoid inhaling the poison. Then the uncomfortable sensation becomes much more so. My energy is being taken straight from my chest, the pressure intensifying while pulling on my innards at the same time, and I can physically see it being taken into this mushroom abomination's hand things in little packets of green.

I hear a zap from behind me, and simultaneously see the thing jerk up a little. The sensation fades and I find myself breathing heavily, now much more tired than I had been. Mello throws another shock wave at it from behind me, paralyzing it temporarily. _That's my cue,_ I think, doing my best to ignore the fatigue and sucking in a breath. I step in and hop up and nail its face again, this time with a solid front kick - *Bap!*. The thing falls over, taking a small patch of grass and dirt with it, and weakly flails about as it's unable to get up without legs. Mello releases a zap from behind me and its body tenses up, then stops moving entirely, lying limp in the grass.

 _God, who though I'd be fighting a mushroom today?_ I think to myself, sitting down to rest. _Who thought I'd be_ fighting _today?_ I had just a little room for martial arts in my interests, but I never would have had to use the skills to defend myself... Jesus, what've I become? Would I have ever willfully picked a fight with anyone, especially one that's bigger than I? I mean, it was attacking us... And then, how often will we be attacked? Every Pokemon I've seen has been aggressive towards us, and this forest gives me an off-putting feeling that the others won't play nice either. And I don't even know how any of them work... I guess it makes sense that a mushroom would give off spores, but then, it, like, sapped my energy with its hands (if I can even call them that). I should be scared of that, and I think I would be if everything wasn't so crazy right now.

 _I'm already in way over my head, and it's only been one day._

And then... what about this _noise,_ or whatever I should call it, that seems to exist whenever I do fight? Or, I guess, when I Mello played that melody... I'll think about that later. Right now I have to assume it's part of being a Riolu, but something tells me otherwise.

A rustling catches my attention, making my heart swell in my chest before I realize it's just Mello, looking in poor shape himself, digging for something in the bag. If he wasn't pissed at me before, he is now. I kinda screwed him over by falling down the stairs. Kinda. Really, I've been screwing him over by existing in this world at all.

"Hey!" He calls, beckoning me with his head. One of the pecha berries lies fixed in his mouth. I get up and walk over to him, getting lightheaded as I stand up. Whatever the thing did, it took a lot out of me. I was just fine beforehand... I sit back down next to him, my wimpy legs protesting even against the short walk.

He grabs a blue berry, an oran, as he called it earlier, in both of his paws and offers it to me. _That's the one that fixed him up in the cave,_ I recall. I grab the berry eagerly and take a large bite before I remember its odd taste. A dry snort comes from Mello as I slowly begin chewing, probably because my face has scrunched itself up. I only manage to half-chew the berry before swallowing it, perturbed by the strange mix of flavors.

But it turns out to be worth it. An odd, warm feeling washes through me from my head to my toes, leaving me with a buzzing feeling all around - like pins and needles, but not as uncomfortable. For a moment I sit frozen, dazedly trying to figure out what just happened. _What's even in this berry? Do all these berries have some healing quality?_

"Come on," Mello says tersely, getting up and putting the satchel back around his shoulder. I spring back up with a newfound energy. The buzzy feeling still lingers a little bit as I walk. We have to step over the big mushroom thing in order to enter the pathway, the only one in the room. _Now I see why Mello attacked it. Glad it wasn't_ that _much of a problem..._

Mello stops suddenly. We've reached a fork - a sharp 90 degree turn left or the continued path. "It's like a maze..." Mello perplexes. After a couple seconds he decides on going to the left, and I can see how the path is exactly perpendicular to the one we just followed, just like the clearing "walls" to the paths. _There's no way this isn't man-made - well, Pokemon-made..._ I think as we enter another room, this one containing three more paths.

"I can't remember all this," Mello grumbles as his glare cycles through the trails. With nothing to discern between them, he decides randomly to go for the one across the square clearing from us. Three right turns later, we arrive in the same room. Even though we now view it from a different perspective, it looks identical to what it did the first time we entered. Mello goes for the path to our right. _But that just leads us back to right here..._ I stop myself from saying, instead just following obediently behind him. _He'll realize soon enough._

As we enter the clearing again, Mello lets an exasperated huff out his nose. _Now we go straight,_ I urge him, waiting for him to make whatever decision he's trying to make. But instead of following my mental command, he decides to go to the left.

"Mello?" This time I stop him. "That's gonna take us back the way we came."

He stops. I can physically feel his frown deepen. "What do you mean?"

"We just went in a loop," I try to explain. "The path to the right takes us right back to this room and the path to the left takes us back the way we came. We gotta to go straight, it's the only path we haven't been through yet."

"Huh." He pivots around, looking at all the different options, trying to confirm my statement. For a moment it seems like he'll ignore me and just continue to the left path, but he finally nods and reroutes toward the opposite side of the clearing.

This path turns out to be a lot longer than all the others, confirming it as an untravelled path. Once we finally reach the end of it, though, we are rewarded with the stairs, which I can only hope mean progress and not the opposite.

"Well, you were right," Mello says as he steps into the stairwell and disappears from view.

 **Tainted Forest BF4**

This time, nothing greets us at the bottom of the stairs except another expanse of the ill-shaped forest. In the back of my mind I had been hoping to be free from whatever curse this forest held. We only went down three floors in the cave, this one can't be much longer. I consider reminding Mello of this, seeing if I can lighten him up a bit. My senses tell me he's stressed and annoyed, completely unlike how he was acting earlier this morning. And then, he probably already realizes we can't be that far from out. I mean, if we don't get lost or killed or something.

I follow him through one of the two openings, leading through a left turn before opening into an absolutely massive clearing. As in, a 50 yard long, 10 yard wide field. But then, those measurements are probably amplified by my lower perspective... All the way down to the left is another of the openings, the only one I can see, but a couple of unidentified figures lurk off near it. Luckily, whatever they are, they don't notice us yet.

"Maybe we should find another way," Mello says quietly, gazing nervously down at the two Pokemon pacing around the other side of the field.

I nod my agreement, stomach churning at the thought of having to fight two unknown enemies at once. It's odd how I'd even consider that a possibility... I wonder if fighting is just a part of being a Riolu, and that's making it easier for me. Mello did tell me I'm a fighting type, whatever that means... That'd explain how easily I engaged earlier, overriding what would have been my human tendencies. I wonder just how much else changed before realizing Mello's already backed out of the clearing into the pathway.

The second path leads us to a fork into a left path and a right path, and Mello quickly decides on the right path, the one leading away from the direction of the large clearing. We walk along without a hitch until we reach another, relatively small clearing, where Mello charges up and launches a bolt through the air, connecting with something to the right.

I edge around him, my heart preemptively quickening against my chest. In the corner of the clearing is a four-legged purple creature with big, pointy ears, a sharp horn jutting out of the top of its skull, and tall, spiky ridges along its back. Before I can weird out again the thing has recovered from Mello's shock and charges at me, its horn glowing with an energy that I don't think I want to touch. I jump out of the way and it skids to a stop, barely missing a tree trunk. Without hesitating it whips around and starts running towards me again. I sidestep again and a shock from Mello trips it. It gets up quickly, unfazed. The horn begins to glow white again as it gets up, and it tilts its head forward. I barely have time to realize it's aiming something at me, and I can feel the needle-looking thing it fired whiz past my side as I contort to dodge. Just as the first shot is fired, more are lined up, and I dash away to avoid getting hit. _I can't fire things like it can,_ I tell myself. _I need to close distance..._

As the thing realizes the shots failed, it looks to charge me again. _Or it can do it for me._ Quickly I back near to a particularly large tree, then jump out of the way right as its horn passes me. It doesn't have enough time to stop before hitting the tree, embedding its horn in the trunk. My knee comes up into a kick cahmber, I straighten it, then bring the back of my foot down on top of the thing's hard, leathery head. The impact makes the creature cry out, but also helps free it from the trunk. _That's nowhere near enough,_ I huff as it shakes off the hit.

I get distracted as a buzzing noise reaches my ears. This time, I don't think it's me... I turn around to see a giant bee with huge, sharp silver spikes on the ends of its arms behind Mello, who himself is backing away from the thing. I swear under my breath. _This was what we were trying to avoid, a two-on-two fight..._

As I'm distracted by the new foe, the purple creature takes the chance to strike and hits me hard with its back legs. A dull burst of pain rushes through my side and I fall to the ground next to Omi. I hop up and ignore the blow, barely making myself enough time to dive and roll out of the way of another one of deranged charge. It stops next to the bee, then, instead of wildly attacking it, turns to face us.

Mello builds up an attack and fires a physical ball of electricity into the opposing pair, and I jump in and hit the abdomen of the bee with my fist as it's stunned. Quickly, I hop backward to narrowly avoid the swing of it's sharp spikes. _Being agile helps... we can pull this off,_ I think, probably overconfidently. Then a sharp, condensed pain shoots through my side as the purple creature jabs its horn, causing me to cry out along with the bright tone from inside me. I stagger backwards and barely have time to regain my footing before the bee is on top of me. Instinctively I throw my right arm in front of my face as it takes another jab. Instead of pain, the attack bounces off the metal plate in my arm with a _clink._ Not a second after, a _zap_ from Mello connects with the bee. I swing my leg in a high arc and connect with its abdomen as its flying falters, but fail to notice another attack coming from the purple thing. It finally lands one of its charges, thrusting its sharp horn into the exact spot in my side it did before. I hit the ground and skid sideways on my back. My mind doesn't want to work, dazed by the pain. Vaguely I hear another _tzzep_ from Mello.

I struggle to my feet after a few seconds, barely catching Mello dive out of the way of the purple thing's charge. I grit my teeth, trying my best to ignore the sharp pain persisting in my side and go for the bee again while it's distracted. I run and jump high into a side kick, knocking the thing back in the air a little bit. But with nothing to push off of, I have no way to right myself. I have a split second to brace myself before another impact with the ground.

The bee recovers quickly and attacks my exposed stomach with the stinger at the end of its tail, releasing whatever poison it has into me. I cry out and desperately scramble away, too focused on the pain, barely noticing Mello tackle the thing out from over me. The pain in my side is nothing compared to the immense pulses from my stomach. Overwhelmed, my body decides to stop working. I can only hear the shuffling of the Pokemon around me as Mello takes on both of them at once.

 **little author's note** \- my apologies for taking an entire month to upload, and i'm gonna say that it probably won't get much better. between robotics, school and other engagements, i'm only able to write intermittently.

also - if there are any typos or formatting mistakes, please let me know. i'm writing on my phone using a markdown app, and markdown doesn't play well with uploading here.

i sincerely appreciate all who are taking the time to read my story!


	4. Chapter 3, Via Calista

**Effio**

 **WB Server Room**

Things could be going a bit better, for me and for the whirring stack of server boxes behind me. Apparently, according to the higherups, I broke something pretty badly, after the machine half-started up a few days ago, and now I'm paying their price. It didn't even work - it kinda just made poor Gardevoir collapse, then stopped. They haven't even told me what the problem really is, other than that the server's falling apart. Even so, that meant two things to me: one, that I get to deal with Dom's shit more often than usual, and two, that the machine is actually interacting with the server. For a long while I had thought it wasn't going to work like it should and that I'd have to face Dom with another request for expensive parts, but anything like they were talking about is a step in the right direction. Well, for me. Apparently not for them.

So it's been nonstop. From the day of the breakthrough to this stagnant Sunday night, I've been in this Arceus-forsaken room where the only light pours through the computer monitor mounted on the wall, working on the machine, sleeping only when I run out of caffeine, taking a break only to relieve myself and/or ponder the problems I've been having with the temperature. And the thing is _hot._ Like, I'm not even sure how it's staying together. It'll probably fry us alive if we try to enter it, and I haven't even gotten the portal part of it fully working yet...

Long ago did Ingo, Cura and my other colleagues leave, it's about midnight now. Any normal person with a normal job wouldn't be working at this time. Me, my ass is fired if I don't get this done in a reasonable amount of time. Dom's definition of reasonable, I might add. But that's not my only motivator (they don't pay me near enough to be working around the clock) - This project is secretly my plan of escape from doing garbage tech jobs in Jubilife.

I plug the machine into the microreactor and watch the startup process begin. Silah, another of my coworkers, was nice enough to make me an actual UI for the terminal, so that I can see what's happening as the machine inevitably kills itself again. The thermometers I placed around the key components read rapidly increasing temperatures to the terminal, as normal, the bars beside them reddening as they rise. Eventually they'll hit the max value, where I've hardcoded it to quit and shut down, and I don't think all the coolant and the fans in the world could keep it from reaching that point. At least, eventually. I watch with eager eyes anyway, the fans battering my hair with hot air. A deep noise resonates from within the machine, signaling the start of its own special reactor, this one running off the same red crystal we use to power the servers. The air surrounded by the projection arc ripples a little, but I'm not sure if it's working like it's supposed to or if that's just an effect of the heat emanating from it. It worked last time I started the machine up, but crashed just as I was beginning to see a hue of red in it. Hopefully, by lowering the amperage through the arc (with some major rewiring), I averted that problem and I'd arrive at another to begin fixing. But then, to my gleeful surprise the intended violet-red circle appears in the dimly lit server room, barely touching the cylindrical ports jutting out of the projection arc. My heart rises in my chest while I check the terminal. The temperature values all collectively waver around 346 degrees, about 80 under the max. In spite of everything, I laugh. _Take that,_ I think to myself, directing it toward no one in particular.

In the chair next to me lies Ingo's Gardevoir, resting in her pokeball after I'd been making her do stuff for me all day. I grab the Pokeball and bring it closer to my head. "Gardevoir," I ask it, "are you awake?" I know I'm asking a big favor to get her help at this hour, but I need to see if the thing actually works and just doesn't look like it's working...

 **Of course, sir,** eventually comes the faint reply to my head. At least I'm not waking her up.

I press the button and she manifests in the chair, looking intently around before stopping her drooping eyes on me. She was sleeping, actually. I probably woke her up by trying to talk to her... Doesn't matter now. "Got it working for now... and wanted to see if I could send things through," I tell her. God, it's probably a bad sign when it takes physical effort to talk...

I reach over to grab one of the many pens strewn across the floor and throw it into the red circle, producing a _vvwummm_ , the disturbance making the projection ripple instead of break like I expected it to. "Feel the pen?" I ask Gardevoir while releasing the breath I'd been holding.

 **Um, there was something... it was there for less than a moment before it disappeared,** she reports.

Huh. _I mean, at least she recognizes it._ I grab another one and lob it in from a distance. "Same thing?"

 **Yes. It disappears after a short moment after it gets in.**

 _So, the pen hits the red, then gets deconstructed, then gets translated into the server. That must be when Gardevoir recognizes it. Why is it "disappear"ing?_ The terminal was not made to tell me the status of the things in the server, and all the monitor stations in the other room have been signed out of, so I don't have any way, other than Gardevoir, to know. Now, with the thing working, my project is to put what I need into the UI... then, maybe I won't have to wake up Gardevoir at... what, 1:00 in the morning. At least the pen isn't getting deep fried by the portal, maybe that means it's safe.

 _Wait... after the crystal deconstructs the pen and recognizes it as an inanimate object, it doesn't do anything with it,_ I realize. I hadn't told the thing what to do with random objects. _So I need something living to try it on..._ I'm not doing it, though. If it doesn't work as it's supposed to, and nothing I make does, God knows what'll happen to me. I'm not risking my life - it'd make all my work completely useless. Three months straight down the drain. I'm the only one who knows how to work this thing, and then, also, it'd just be left on all night to rack up our already beyond-unbelievable electrical bill...

I get up and walk into the monitoring room, running my eyes across the stations at which everyone else here works. Each one has a tower under it, with a bunch of variously colored wires running through a little hole through the closed wooden table to a keyboard and two monitors. All of them have been turned off, and I'd need a password to get into them... and because I wasn't hired to sit and watch a bunch of Pokemon everyday, I don't have one.

On the opposite side of the room lies the door to the main office, where Dom and all the other leads work. Gardevoir decides to follow me through the unlocked door. They don't allow Pokemon to go inside that room, but I also know that that rule is violated all the time... and then, they should've locked it in the first place. Sure enough, as I step in and flick on the light, illuminated is a red pokeball hidden behind a messy pile of documents (or whatever). _God, who would forget their Pokemon? Seems like a bad trainer..._ I grab the pokeball and pop it open, letting free an enormous Arcanine.

"Gardevoir, can you translate?" I ask as the big orange beast grows accustomed to its surroundings.

It utters a confused growl once it sees me holding its pokeball.

 **She says, "You're not Dom."** Gardevoir relays.

Oh. A smirk spreads across my face. _Of COURSE it would be Dom to leave one of his Pokemon behind,_ I think to myself, letting out a snort. "No, I'm not Dom. He left a while ago," I tell him.

Shee grumbles.

" **Not again," she says.**

Unable to help myself, I break out into laughter. _This is rich, Ingo's hearing all about this tomorrow..._ I wonder how long its actually been since I last had a laugh. Not since the project started, probably. And now it's at the expense of this poor abandoned Arcanine, who probably thinks I'm laughing at her. In fact, I can see a hurt expression on her face. The poor thing probably just wants to go back into her Pokeball and rest alone in peace.

Sadly for both of us, I need to test some stuff on her. "Arcanine, would you come with me?"

She barks indignantly at me.

" **Why should I? You're not Dom," she says.**

"Because I need your help with something," I tell her. "I wasn't laughing at you, by the way. Dom's just... a piece of shit, that's all."

It sits in the middle of the room, thinking about my request, before reluctantly nodding and rising to its four feet. "Thanks," I say, wondering briefly whether or not she agreed with my opinion of her own trainer. She dips her head again. It's kinda nice, at this point in time, to have people - Pokemon, I guess - to talk to...

We head back to the server room, bathed in the red light from the portal that is miraculously still running. The terminal shows all the thermometers to be steadily bobbing just under the max.

The Arcanine lets out another confused noise, which Gardevoir tells me means "What's that?"

"It's a portal."

 _Grruh?_ she asks. "To where?"

After a moment of thought, in which the Arcanine waits restlessly for an answer, I decide just to see what'll happen. "Here, why don't you find out for me?"

Without hesitating, she nods and leaps through the red ring, disappearing with a loud _Vwumm_. It surprises me a little, how willing she is, especially since I just woke her up in the middle of the night out of nowhere... But she's in, and nothing seems to have broken. "Gardevoir, can you feel him?" I ask, more alert now.

 **Yes, he's at the Gate now. Hold on -** And with that, Gardevoir all of a sudden goes limp again, eyes rolling back into her head. I have to dive to catch her and stop her head from hitting the hard tile floor. I lie her down gently and check the terminal, where the temperature bars are slowly rising again.

 _What happens when the thing shuts off and they're both in there?_ I think to myself. As the portal loses its connection, it should kick anything inside of it out. But to which side? I suppose Gardevoir would stay here, because that's where her body is, but what about the Arcanine? She's not fully through the portal if she's at the gate... A terrible thought comes over me. _What if I lose my boss' Pokemon?_ I didn't really think this through... Actually, now that I think about it, I'm lucky she didn't get smelted by the heat of the portal. Again, they can't really fire me and expect to get another person to understand all this crap, though. Still, I'll bet Dom has other ways of making life terrible for me. All I can do is wait anxiously in front of the machine...

 **Augue Forest**

 **Omiah**

I wake up cold and sore. The entire right side of my body just hurts to move, I find out immediately as I try to sit up and see my surroundings. Vaguely I remember what happened earlier in the forest, and my mood just worsens as I think about the big purple creature and the supersized wasp thing that overwhelmed us and knocked me out. Luckily, they no longer seem to be around. Mello... how much longer did he last against the two? He couldn't have escaped them, could he have? No, in fact, he lies sprawled in the grass next to me. I gasp as I notice a dried red blotch on the side of his stomach, rising and falling as he sleeps...

Luckily, we seem to be free from the maze part of the forest, judging by the thin underbrush and randomly placed trees. And it's night time, too... sure explains why it's so cold. How long have we been out?

Mello's bag lies wide open off next to his body, a couple of pecha berries fallen out in front of it. I pick them up and put them back into the bag - then realize that, of the 40 or so berries that had been in the bag, only about 10 of them remained. I pick up one of the two remaining oran berries and lie it next to Mello's face, for him to eat and recover from the giant gash in his side. Jesus, that must've been _painful_... And I though the horn hurt a lot...

What have I done? Picking the fight would've been fine if not for the huge-ass bee that swooped in and knocked us out... There was a decision that I didn't even consider, and that was to run away. The instant the bee hit the scene I should have been out of there. Would Mello have run from that fight if I had? Could we have made it out of the forest if I had made that simple decision? Maybe if I could have acted rationally, I could have saved us from getting nearly killed.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but... is Mello going to forgive me for that?

With a start, Mello props himself up and blinks a couple of times. _Speak of the devil..._ Apprehension builds as I wait for him to remember what had happened in the forest.

Instead, he surprises me. "Get me my sonarum," he says urgently, fixated on the bag beneath me. No, instead of complaining about his wound or realizing what happened, he's more focused on music...

Luckily the wooden box is still there, beneath the diminished number of berries. As carefully as I can, I remove it and place it on the ground in front of Mello, correctly guessing which side is the front.

"I had another dream," he says, excited. As he moves, he takes no notice of the bloody puncture in his side. "This time it wasn't so much a melody as a pattern."

I can't help but look at him oddly as he lifts the lid and slides the halves into place, and this time it's not in interest for the odd instrument. _He's not mad at me?_ My stomach rises a little. _Or maybe he just hasn't remembered..._

I snap back to attention as the sawtooth tone from the sonarum vibrates my ears. The sonarum is important, somehow, something tells me. It's like I'm morally obligated to listen to whatever comes out of its acoustic box, maybe even out of hope that it'll lead me home, or something like that. I wait patiently for Mello to get his bearings.

Slowly he begins to form a makeshift arpeggio, starting from what I guess is the bottom of the chord, then walking up for about two more notes before jumping a couple of fifths upwards and repeating. Whatever song he plays is minor, with a kind of mystic feel, judging by the added 2nds and 4ths.

"It goes faster, but I don't think I can without more paws," Mello says, breaking my concentration a bit. "Anyway..." He begins to play a similarly structured arpeggio starting from a lower key. This one seems as though it is the base chord, resolving all the oddities in the arpeggio before it.

Wait... ...I've heard that before, too. In my head, hard-hitting drums belt out the anchor for the rest of the many voices, including the blinky arpeggio, the rapidly undulating bass, and the bright, wailing lead. The interaction between Mello's chords becomes immediately obvious - the song repeatedly shifts from the four to the one, the hard resolution only strengthened by the straight drum beat. The melody freely glides over the set pattern, doing walks and runs as it pleases, the depth of its voice seemingly dependent on its pitch.

"You recognize this one too?" Mello almost exclaims. I nod, becoming aware that, lost in remembrance, my tone had reappeared and was mimicking the bass voice, undulating quickly on the triplets of the beat, solidifying the melody on the base note of each chord.

"And it's probably something you heard in the human world?" He continues with a gleam in his eye.

I nod again, sharing his thoughts. _This has to mean something... maybe music has something to do with a way back! If that's the case, Mello has something to do with it as well, because he's the one hearing it. Really wish I could remember the song name..._

He sighs. "Gosh, I wish I could hear all of it together..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in the dream, it didn't feel complete... All I heard was that pattern there, whatever you want to call it -"

"- an arpeggio?"

"Yeah, sure - and it seemed lonely, like there was more to it, like it was part of an entire picture. It's like yesterday! That melody was cool, but it seemed lost..." He pauses to think. "But whatever you're doing, whatever that hum is, brings it a good step closer to being complete."

With nothing to say, I nod again. _So he can't hear the whole song, just a single part... What does that mean?_

"What is that humming thing, anyway?" He asks me.

I shrug. "I've been wondering that myself."

"Well, it's pretty cool," he says warmly.

A smile makes its way across my face and my mood brightens a bit. "Thanks."

For a couple of moments, we sit contentedly in the dark forest, thinking about the song we had just shared between each other. _Mello must love music as much as I do,_ I think to myself, staring at him as he gazes into the distance. He's pretty good at his instrument, too, especially considering he doesn't have fingers. I can't remember if I ever played an instrument when I was a human, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been dedicated enough to truly learn it.

"Hey, can I try the sonarum?" I ask on a whim.

Mello pauses for a second. "Well, I don't think so - Not cause I don't want you to, but cause only electric Pokemon can use it," he explains.

That's too bad. It sounds so unique, unlike any instrument I could remember, almost synthetic... probably for that reason, that it takes electricity to play. I nod my dismayed understanding.

"We should probably get going, anyway," he says. "Hand me the bag, I'm kinda hungry."

My mood drops again as I pass the almost-empty bag to him. _Here we go._

"Woah..." he says as he peers into the bag, then turns to me with a confused expression. "Where'd our berries go?"

I can only shrug.

"Wait... I'll bet the two wilds found them and took them," he proposes.

 _That's pretty likely,_ I think to myself. If I were a wild Pokemon and found some berries in a bag unattended, I'd take them, too. Then, if I were a wild Pokemon, I'd probably just eat the bag's owner after I knocked him out... Do Pokemon even eat meat?

"Well, we can't be too far from Augue," he sighs, taking out a berry that looks like a blue strawberry and biting into it. "Help yourself. Just don't take too much," he tells me with his mouth full.

I decide against it. If we decide to get lost in another one of those creepy mazes, we'll probably need the berries. And then, judging by how about three or four of the berries constitutes a meal, we won't have food later today. "No, it's okay," I say, a little more reluctantly than I had meant to.

"You sure?" He asks, taking another bite.

"Yeah, I'm not that hungry," I tell him (and myself).

"But you just battled two Pokemon! And, you know, we didn't really have lunch... You should at least eat one," he insists.

 _Well, at least he's not mad at me. I wonder what changed..._ I nod and pace over to the bag. I take another of the ones Mello has, leaving one left in the bag. I expect it to taste a bit sour, but there's no flavor... it just tastes bitter. Luckily, it's manageable and doesn't really taste that bad.

"Alright," Mello says as he finishes a second berry. "I've decided that we should head straight north until we get to the road."

"There's a road?"

"Of course! I just didn't take it because this way is prettier. And faster, kind of. But then, you know, running into a maze doesn't help with time... I can't say I know exactly where we are, but I do know if we go north just a bit we can follow the road," Mello explains, motioning in a direction with his paw. "And if we go that way, I don't think there's as much of a risk of getting caught in a maze."

I nod. _No mazes sounds good. Especially if they set Mello deep on edge..._

"Hold on..." Mello says as he puts his sonarum away. "Where's all my money?"

"Money?"

"Yeah, it was all in a different pocket... and it's not there anymore..." He puzzles. "Did the wilds take it?"

"I mean, why would they want the money?"

"Well, they were acting pretty oddly... I've never seen any Pokemon so aggressive before... And then, they teamed up on us! That never happens, especially with wild Pokemon... that're different species, at least. I feel like they knew what they were doing."

Were they actually wild, or were they sentient like us? _No, they weren't,_ I tell myself. _Their eyes... I can't_ not _believe that they were wild. No sane person would be that pointlessly aggressive. Or Pokemon, I guess._ Something was wrong with the Pokemon in that forest, for sure, and I suspected whatever was making them crazy affected Mello as well...

"Well, I guess it's okay... I didn't have that much money, just 200 poke..." Mello sighs. "Lets go, we'll be fine when we get to Augue." He makes a good effort to sound upbeat, but something in me senses that he's disheartened. I follow behind him, hoping that he'll cheer up on the way.

 **Mello**

 **Via Calista East**

It'd been a while since we'd reached the road, and somehow Omi had managed to stay silent throughout. I wonder if his feet hurt at all, because mine do a little bit. Walking on a road is kinda odd after having had soil under your paws for the past three days. It took me a little while to adjust, even, and my paws didn't like that at all.

In the distance, though, something catches my eye. The stone arc bridge that crosses the River Parvus is a lot closer than I thought it was. We should be in Augue before midday, hopefully. I look closely and see another group of Pokemon crossing the bridge, this one larger and pulling along a cart of stuff. Omi stays silent for the while it takes them to near us, observing all of the probably unfamiliar creatures. They, however, do not - "...And then, after that, he'd just pin her down and use a discharge attack, and it'd be game over!" enthuses a young Noibat boy, who flits around in the air to emphasize his point. He talks to a little cluster of small Pokemon behind the cart, consisting of two Trapinch and a Litleo. In front, a Flygon pulls the cart along behind two more Pokemon with the black cloth scarves, a Persian and a Magmar.

"But then she'd just overheat herself! Then she can follow up with a flamethrower, you seen her do one of those?" counters the Litleo, a girl, with a gleam in her eye. I smile as I realize they're debating over the Legendaries. "I don't think anything else of the island could get that -"

As they pass, the Magmar looks us over, then seems to realize something. "Hey!" He cuts the Litleo off, his old voice contrasting greatly with the higher pitch. "You two are traveling alone, yes?"

"Yeah," I respond, stopping and turning back towards him. Aside me, Omi nods.

"Where did you come from?" He questions, maybe a bit forcefully.

"Oresta." I keep my cheer for the time being.

The big fire type seems to ponder that for a second, then turns to the Persian, his partner. "So," he says more quietly. "Do you think Moltres would want us to split up?"

The cat looks at him blankly. "I mean, probably not," she says in a comparatively higher voice. "What are you thinking?"

"Well," the Magmar says, "I'd thought all Pokemon had to be escorted."

 _Escorted by who?_

"No, there's no way we have enough members for that. Let's just go," the cat says, resuming its stride.

The Magmar looks back at us, then jogs to catch up with his partner. "Whatever."

"Members...?" I hear Omi murmur as we watch them continue. His eyes follow them down the path, studying something.

After a few more moments of them receding into the distance (and the Noibat flying chattily over the group of kids behind the cart), I finally turn around and start walking towards the bridge. Belated footsteps tell me Omi's trance has broken, and he eventually matches my stride.

"God... How many different kinds of Pokemon are there?" He asks, glancing back once more.

I laugh. "A lot."

"Did you recognize all of them?"

"Yeah. There was a Magmar, a Persian, those were to two with the scarves, a Flygon pulling the cart, two Trapinch, a Noibat and a Litleo."

He looks to the group, then back at me, his brow raised. "And how do you remember all of this?"

"Well," I laugh again, "probably because I live in Oresta. It's basically a halfway point between Arcus and Augue, so a lot of Pokemon pass through on their trips."

"Am I expected to know all the different kinds of Pokemon?" he asks.

"Not really, but you should still try and remember what they're called in case you run into them again," I advise to his dismay.

Omi is silent as we cross the bridge, not commenting on the fact that it's a pretty long one or asking what the river below is called. The road bends around to follow the river upstream, straight towards Augue. As we go around, we're met with another set of Pokemon: a Shroomish and a round bird looking one that I'd never seen before led by an Ivysaur, outfitted in another one of the black scarves. _Those have to mean something,_ I think to myself.

"Hey, Ivysaur?" I decide to flag him down as they pass.

The three stop and turn to me. "Yeah?" the Ivysaur says. I can tell he's not that much older than I am, if he is at all. "What's the problem?"

I act a little more sheepishly now that all three of their attentions are centered on me. "Why are you wearing a scarf like that?"

"Oh. I'm just a part of the Vis," he replies quickly, then preoccupies himself by checking on the two Pokemon behind him. "Come on, guys, we've still got a lot of ground to cover."

They both silently nod in agreement (the bird just kinda bobs up and down), and the trio heads on its way down the bridge, leaving me wondering what exactly the Vis is. It must be some kind of transport service, from what I can tell. The two groups that walked past us had at least one with a scarf, first the Magmar and the Persian, and now the Ivysaur.

"That was kinda rude," Omi comments, watching the trio fall below the arc of the bridge and out of view.

"They probably had somewhere to be," I say, shrugging it off. If that Ivysaur was supposed to deliver the two other Pokemon to their destination on a deadline, I guess I could understand why he'd just up and leave. _That must be right,_ I reason, _a Pokemon transport service would probably have deadlines._ At least he wasn't unpleasant to us.

"Huh?" An exclamation from the road ahead causes me to jump.

 _There was noone there just a second ago,_ I think, turning back around.

Wait.

Looking down at the river beside the road is an Ivysaur wearing a scarf, and beside him are a Shroomish and that little green bird... _But we just passed them,_ I think to myself in disbelief.

"Hey!" I call to them, running over. "Didn't we just meet?"

The Ivysaur and the two turn towards me and collectively frown. Before he has a chance to say anything, the atmosphere changes completely.

 **Omiah**

 **Flooded Road F1**

Again. Really? A downright _awful_ feeling spreads shuddering through my body and immediately I realize the maze thing is happening again. For a moment I'm completely disoriented - a quick-moving fog envelopes the area, making it impossible to see, and once it clears a little our surroundings have changed completely. Instead of a long inclined sidewalk in front of us, the area is flat and I realize I'm standing at the edge of a steep bank into a pool of still water. A thick layer of fog prevents me from seeing across it, so I have to assume it's not passable. I wonder how different swimming is for a Riolu... I take a couple precautionary steps back from it, then jump as a splash hits my ears from behind, followed shortly by a shout. I whip around and find the fat bird thing flailing around in the water. My heart drops out of my chest. Do I dive in and test my swimming skills, or can he make it himself? I watch in horror as the thing struggles to keep its beam above the water. He takes a deep breath before he goes under.

 _Fuck, he's not gonna make it,_ I think, then dive into the water, bracing myself for the cold. Another shout reaches my ears before I go under, but I can't deal with that now. Luckily for me the water is half decent, and the bank drops off steep enough to allow me diving room. ...Might've wanted to check that before going in headfirst.

I kick my way towards the little Pokemon and touch it before I reach the surface. Realizing I have what I need, I loop my arm around one of his blindly swinging wings and surface, making sure to drag him above me. He's surprisingly light, surprising because I'm pretty sure he could've just floated on the top of the water. Once I regain my breath and figure out where the bank is, I flop him onto my back and start breaststroking, allocating my left arm to keep the little guy on top of me. Atop the bank stand Mello and the two other Pokemon, looking bewildered at me while I grab the bird and climb up.

Now, it's cold.

"Good Arceus, Omi!" I hear Mello cry from my right, then he rushes over to me and begins rummaging through his bag. He emerges with the fire orb in his mouth and quickly places it near me. It's nice and warm, but I resist the urge to grab it and hold it near my chest.

I place the bird beside me and sit up, looking around once more. It'd seem that the road we had just been on has been narrowed into a short path by a new body of water on the other side. Both bodies are stagnant, thankfully, or the bird would've been a lot harder to rescue. My heart still races a little bit and I realize I'm making noise again, this time a slowly turning buzzing sound. I have to concentrate to calm myself down. There's no wind, but I still shiver in place, sopping wet. The three others are bunched together on the narrow path, each staring wide-eyed at us.

"Oh, Lord, Rass..." The Ivysaur says, running past us over to the small bird as two vines protrude from beneath the bulb on his back and pick it up. He shakes himself off in the vines and lets out a breathless cough.

"Omi," Mello tells me, half frightened, "You might be the only one here that can swim."

"Yeah, Arceus knows I can't," the Ivysaur says as he cradles the young bird in his arms.

"I think it's happening again," Mello says from behind him, looking warily around.

I nod my head, muttering a dismayed "Yeah." There's no way anything else could have happened - I feel the same oppressive dread weighing on me, the water blocks off all but one path, and that path will probably split into two or open into a larger platform or something if we follow it into the fog that just magically showed up.

The Ivysaur glances at both of us. "Exactly what is happening again?"

"The maze thing," Mello says, a look of hopelessness in his eyes.

The Ivysaur's eyes widen. "Oh, no, you mean a Mystery Dungeon?"

"Mystery Dungeon? I guess..." Mello says.

"Wait, so you two have been through one before?"

We both nod. "And Mystery Dungeon seems like an appropriate name," I add. "But we should keep moving," I say, trying to sound urgent, getting up out of the wet puddle around me. Even though a thousand and one of them come to mind, asking questions now won't help.

The Ivysaur turns to the Shroomish and puts the little bird next to it. "Stay by me," he commands, and the two nod silently. I can tell they're frightened, but not just because their eyes are just a little bit wider than they should be, more because I can physically feel fear emanating from their minds... And in the other two, a slightly different but fundamentally same vibe sheds from them. They're all on edge, but on a different level than I. Like, they're at the brink of rationality, or something... hopefully it's not as extreme as that, though.

So, being the one to get everyone moving, I lead this time. Maybe the two more experienced Pokemon should, but I don't trust their judgements at the current moment. We begin in the direction Augue should be, but it's impossible to see more than maybe a quarter mile with the fog surrounding us. As I begin walking before them, both Mello's and the unnamed Ivysaur's minds relax, if but a little - I think they were probably dreading being the one to lead, which doesn't help my own nerves at all. It also doesn't help that I'm frigid and leaving a little trail of water behind me as I walk. I just have to man up...

First, the maze had been in a cave. It was pretty believable there - as believable as something like that could be, with oddly shaped passages and rooms. I remember passing it off as manmade (Pokemon-made, whatever), and it probably could have been, but in the forest, the way the trees grew was neither natural nor synthetic. And now, walking across this little isthmus surrounded by obscuring fog and water, there's something sinister about it... sinisterly supernatural. It's odd how similar each of these "Mystery Dungeon"s are, in design, too. Each of them are so angular in the way they open up - even the banks on either side of me jut sharply down to form a wide trapezoid above the water. Nothing like this ever happened back on Earth, that I'm sure of...

We reach the first room (more of a platform, really) and I wait for all four of the restless Pokemon to enter the room with me before I decide to continue to the right. All of them are eerily silent, leaving me only to feel their potent emotions behind me. No wind or anything to fill my ears, nothing but the patting of footsteps and shuffling of paws in the air. I swear I can even hear my own noise, buzzing lowly in my head. I wonder if anyone else can even hear that...

The staircase lies in the room after. Instead of taking us down a level, though, it leads up into the foggy sky, indeterminably high. It's a staircase nonetheless, and I can feel Mello relax a bit. The other three, however, remain tense.

"Why are there stairs?" the Shroomish asks, her voice squeaky and taut.

The Ivysaur answers the question for me. "That's how we escape," he tells her. Somehow the atmosphere makes it sound grave and ominous, even though that's not what he was going for.

Without any more talk, I lead the small group up the staircase. As the fog begins to condense further and to obscure the ground below, I become a lot more aware of the fact that there are no railings on the staircase, meaning any of us could fall back down to the floor below and become separated. What happens if someone goes up without the group? In the forest, the staircase disappeared once both of us had left it. Does that mean that anyone left behind would be trapped on the area before? I stop and check to make sure we have everyone. _One, two, three... four..._ I can barely see the little bird at the end through the fog that seems to just keep getting thicker with the altitude...

 **Flooded Road F2**

Suddenly, just as I was beginning to wonder how long the staircase is, the fog retreats and reveals a new area, complete with the same styled platforms and passages, and water everywhere else. I check back again and do another count, just to be sure... We no longer stand on the stairs, but on a smaller version of the platforms, in front of a couple of pathways that snake their separate ways into the mist beyond. I expect the rest of the group to start commenting on the odd development, but they're all completely silent, still rigid with apprehension...

A loud noise sounds from behind us, startling the living Christ out of me and the rest of the group, who collectively jump and whip around. Facing us is a tall, long, cream-colored serpentine figure, its tail snaking into the water, partially obscured by the mist. It's like the Onix, earlier, but more natural-looking, maybe even _bigger..._ In normal circumstances I might have even called it pretty. But of course, the circumstances are not normal.

"Rass! Glomer! Get behind me," Ivysaur shouts, and the two obediently back away from the blood-lusty behemoth in front of us.

"What is it?" I hear one of them cry over the new presence of my tone, rising to face the new opponent.

"Milotic!" Mello shouts as he discharges a hefty bolt into the thing. It cries out and retreats into the water by its side, sliding effortlessly across the rocky pavement and through the water. For a moment all we can hear is a low rushing of water over my incessant drone. With a splash and a large fountain of water it surfaces violently to our right and lets forth a giant spray of water from its mouth, aimed straight for me. With no time to dive away to safety, the stream catches me in the center and I'm knocked off my feet. An odd sensation, like the one that happened when we were fighting the mushroom, washes over me with the water. For a few seconds the Milotic holds its powerful jet before I'm allowed to breathe again. Lying wet in the residual puddle, I feel the sensation that my head seems to rise completely out of my head, trying to pull my body with it... I lie there in a dazed state for a moment before I realize the attack did just about the same thing as the mushroom thing's attack and I have no energy. I hear the thing splash through the water and something hits me on the side of the head. It takes me a long while to realize that that something was actually a berry and not another one of the serpent's attacks. I pick it up and bite into it, only halfway confirming it's truly edible, and the bitter taste of an oran berry pours into my mouth.

As the berry's juice runs quickly through my body, I see a couple of Ivysaur's vines whip through the air and strike the side of the Milotic's body, causing it to reel back with a screech and retreat into the water. To my surprise, Mello jumps into the pool with it and electrifies the water with an attack, and another cry, dampened by the water, sounds loud through the air. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the thing's tail, glowing with energy, flips through the water and strikes Mello in the side. He tumbles through the water with a fountain in his wake, sliding across the surface into the foggy sea.

Without skipping a beat, I run into a shallow dive and kick my way over to him where he's thrashing and flailing water everywhere. I almost don't recognize the brightened and burning tone that's resonating through the water as myself, instead focusing on listening to where Mello's movement is so that he doesn't sink under. Eventually I reach him with my arm, then latch onto him and begin treading, checking briefly to see if the serpent is still trained in on us. Back on shore, Ivysaur narrowly dodges the thing's tail again, then struggles to get an attack in before it retreats back into the water to prepare another strike. I grab a good hold of Mello and sling him onto my back, briefly bobbing under when he latches onto my back. _Even underwater he's heavy..._ I think as I wipe the water away from my eyes. I begin breaststroking my way to the steep bank again, barely able to watch the poor Ivysaur get beamed with a massive jet of water. _He basically sacrificed himself to let us get back to shore..._ I think to myself, breathing heavily whenever I have the chance. We reach the shore as the Milotic dives back into the sea. I drag Mello onto the slanted dirt and sprint as well as my legs will let me over to the Ivysaur who now lays on the ground. Shortly after, Mello bounds to my side. Luckily, he's okay.

"Thanks, Omi," he says, taking off the satchel. I want to laugh at the fact that that thing stayed on him the whole time, but I'm not sure I can at the moment.

"Yeah, thanks..." the Ivysaur grumbles, still able to sound cold in his weakened state.

"Hey, I can't swim!" Mello retorts. He pauses his searching through the bag and scowls at the Ivysaur. "If you're just gonna be cold, I might keep our last oran berry to ourselves..."

Ouch. "Just give him the berry, Mello," I tell him, exasperated. An empty, distraught feeling creeps into me. I hate it, more than anything, when two friends start to fight. And now that I can basically tell everything they're feeling, their animosity is all the more strong. If there's going to be tension between Mello and our new acquaintance, it's going to persist throughout the dungeon. "We don't fucking have time for this..."

Distantly I can hear a splash, signifying the return of the Milotic. It's almost inaudible above the suppressive humming in the air around me, protecting my ears from further bickering between the two other Pokemon. _I need action,_ my mind tells my body. _I need some way to release..._

The Milotic rears back, probably preparing an attack of some sort, and my legs decide it's time. I run at the thing, thinking of the Onix and how my flying side kick was pretty effective. The question now is whether or not I can jump the large gap of water...

The giant snake realizes it's being charged and opens its mouth, but by that time I'm already in the air over the water with my right leg extended and my left leg folded under myself. As it releases the jet of water, my foot impacts its body smack in the middle, making it give immediately. The stream of water follows the Milotic's head into the air, arcing over the platform that all the other Pokemon stand on. But with nothing to kick off of, I fall down into the water back first, barely remembering to suck in a new breath and shut my eyes tight before my head goes under.

The presence of the sound inside of me becomes boxed in by the water. I know I should be hearing the rushing sounds as my ears are bombarded and washed through, but I cannot - My tone is all I can sense, gravelly and low, pulsing aggressively. Eventually, as I'm disoriented under the surface, I can feel myself vibrating. My chest feels the constant pressure of loud bass, in addition to the pressure from the water. Instead of trying to resurface or get up, the hypnotic pulses are all I can focus on. It's not until I begin to run low on breath that my brain realizes something it wrong.

Panic begins to spread through my body. _What just happened?_ my brain asks me, but I shove the question away. There's no time to think, I just have to swim up...

Something grabs my leg, smooth, maybe even scaly? The panic turns immediately into terror as what I can only assume to be the Milotic curls tightly around my left leg. I push through the water with my arms, hoping to free myself in whatever way, but with nothing to anchor myself to, it's not going to happen. My brain enters full panic mode as the thing begins to pull me further below the surface of the lake.

Then, something grabs my arm, rough and skinny, and starts pulling the other way. In a frantic, desperate scramble I pull back, freeing my leg from the Milotic's grip, probably lubricated by the water. In a matter of a second I'm above the water, sucking ravenously on the air, dangling from one of the Ivysaur's vines.

Below me I can see the dark shadow of the Milotic slithering around, and only then do I realize just how _massive_ it is. I'm willing to bet some serious money that it's even longer than the Onix. I also notice the thick, darkened lines across the pavement where it sprayed water, reaching all the way across the platform.

Ivysaur sets me down next to him and Mello, a puddle beginning to collect from my sopping fur. _He just... saved my life,_ I think to myself as my senses fully return to me.

"Thank you," I manage to get out, but he probably can't hear it over how loud my tone is.

My heart drops as I see the stupid thing rise from the water again, looking directly at me with the beyond-feral fire in its eyes. But this time, Mello and Ivysaur are ready. A sharp _tzzat_ pierces straight through the low undulating noise that fills the air as a bolt of electricity arcs from him to the Milotic. It stiffens visibly and sinks a little back into the water. Beside me, the Ivysaur closes his eyes in concentration. The tip of the big bulb on his back begins growing white with an unknown energy, and I watch in wonderment as white leaves appear out of the thin air above him. For a tiny moment they hang, unmoving, until each of their tips snap to point at the Milotic. In that instant they whistle towards their target, the majority of them hitting the neck of the giant snake. It gives another loud screech before it slowly topples over in a giant fountain of water. A long moment passes as we wait for it to reappear, but it doesn't. The tense air filled with my vibrant noise begins to loosen.

A glance is exchanged between us three, one of incredulity and terror. I pray to God that the other Pokemon in here aren't that hard to take out, especially if we don't have many more Oran berries. Getting killed again (or whatever crap happened back in the forest) doesn't appeal to me. The Ivysaur turns and beckons to his two little followers, who had bunkered on the bank opposite to the Milotic in fear. Without any more words, we head for the nearest pathway across the little lakes, all the more on edge.

Luckily it doesn't take us very long to find the stairway upwards - the instant it comes into sight, I can feel everyone's moods lighten (my own included). _One step closer,_ I tell myself. _Hope there aren't too many more steps._

 **Flooded Road F3**

As the mist dissipates, I immediately spot the next staircase, sitting a few yards away from where we now stand. The mood shifts further towards the better as we all run over it and start climbing, maybe even harboring a little spark of hope...

 **Flooded Road, F4**

As the starcase's fog clears, I look eagerly for another one, greedily hoping we could just dip out of another floor with the snap of my fingers - if I can even do that. My mood drops a little when I find nothing. A lone pathway off the paved platform lies on the farthest wall, which I begin running for. If we move quickly, we might be able to find the stairs before other Pokemon find us.

So I begin dashing through the isthmus pathways dividing the pools of water, not exactly paying attention to where I've been, checking occasionally behind me to do a body count. Eventually I wind up winded with the stairs in sight. As I step onto the platform, I half expect another giant creature to pop out of the water and douse us in energy-infused water, but none do. _Maybe the only thing here was that Milotic..._ I hope to myself as we finally ascend the stairs.

 **Flooded Road, F5**

The mist clears to reveal another platform surrounded by still, blue water. _There's more?_ I sigh, taking a look around before heading for another pathway. It bugs me how the rest of the group stays silent as I lead them precariously through the dungeon... The tension is building again, I sense, their moods becoming dampened by the dreary looks of our chances. If we encounter another Pokemon and it's as persistent as the Milotic, we could start losing people. I quicken my jog further at the thought of having to carry around a half-dead Pokemon (that's likely larger than me) around to and up stairs.

But again, we get lucky. A few turns and we find the platform with the stairs. This time, however, the feelings of the Pokemon behind me don't change as much. I can tell we all share the same sentiment: How much further do we have to go?


	5. Chapter 4, The Vis Augue

**World's Tune, Chapter 4**

 **Suiri**

 **Augue, West Gate**

The day has been slow, luckily for Rena and I. And the teams that would have to go with some desperate Pokemon beyond Augue's walls. As it turns out, no one really wants to leave because of the Mystery Dungeons, even with the Vis to protect them. With so much distance in between Augue and Calista, or even Ignix, and the probability of running into an unrecorded dungeon so high, I can't really say I blame them. According to Moltres and Uxie, there's a new dungeon popping up every five minutes, but if that were the case, this entire Arceus-forsaken island would be covered - just one enormous Mystery Dungeon with no exit. And that's impossible, right? Hopefully.

It's painful, every time I'm forced to send someone out with a group, especially when the group isn't exactly strong, either. I think Rena feels the same way when she sends out the mental summons to the next team in the queue to be ready. Late last night the team queue got to a young Ivysaur named Midas, one who joined the Vis just that day, and I remember Rena being all, "Oh, poor thing! Hope he gets others who can pull their own weight," after she called him in. We sent out a couple of teams that night, and they seemed ready enough... Then, this morning, I met two little kids and their father, who was a Decidueye. He said the children needed to get to Calista to see "a relative", and that he couldn't accompany them because he had to stay in Augue for work. I remember looking skeptically at the two little Pokemon and thinking, _Oh, who's the lucky group that gets to take these two?_ And then sighing as I realized the task fell on Midas. As the lone Ivysaur emerged from the queue bedrooms, I don't think you'd have to be a psychic to _feel_ his already low hopes drop straight through the ground. And so he went, down Via Parvus, a lone Ivysaur and two little kids, armed only with his vines and the meager ration of berries the Vis gives him. Shit like that makes me wish I wasn't forced to do organization work in the west terminal. Why, when they say we're low on teams and members to keep everyone safe, should I be sitting behind a counter instead of braving Mystery Dungeons? I can say for sure that I'm more prepared for escorts than a lot of the Pokemon I've sent out, including Midas.

Sorry, Midas.

"Breloom!" A jolly voice from outside catches my ear, the first voice I've heard in a while. I ready myself for another traveller, but turn to find a Herdier, Raefel, standing as stoic as always outside the arch entrance.

 **He's going to ask you to put your scarf back on,** Rena tells me from her sitting spot across the room. I glance down to the floor where the stupid scarf lies. _I could've told you that,_ I think to myself.

"Keep your scarf on!" He says lightheartedly as I bend over to retrieve it.

"I have a name, you know," I shout back at him once I've situated myself, but he's already gone, probably off to check the job board in the square again. I sigh at the unnatural sensation of the scarf on the frills of my neck. I could just take it back off... he wouldn't notice and I wouldn't be unhappy. But then, in addition to breaking code, I'd be disobeying him. He's too wholesome to deserve that,

"Breloom!" This time, a child's voice sounds through the entrance, and a little Tepig comes skidding into the room with a spooked expression across his face. Again I prepare to send a team out.

"There's a bunch of dead guys out there!" He says urgently.

"What?" Rena and I both start.

"Here!"

I jump the counter and follow the little guy out into the slabbed street, where a congregation of Pokemon have circled around what I can assume is what he's leading us to. We make our way through the little flustered crowd and find three Pokemon, none of which I recognize personally, two of which I'd never seen before. Each of them are soaking wet and out like a light, sprawled next to the wall of someone's house randomly. Most notably, though, is a Rapidash with a yellow scarf, whose flames struggle to make it fully into the air. _They must have been coming from Calista,_ I think, recognizing yellow as the color assigned to the Vis there.

"You might want to call a healer over," I tell Rena beside me.

She nods absently, inspecting the trio. "Already done. The good thing is, Tepig, these Pokemon aren't dead. They're just unconscious."

I look over the crowd, half of whom are looking expectantly at Rena and I. Now would be the time to prove our worth... too bad we're as clueless as the rest of them. "Anyone know what happened here?" I try asking. The murmuring dampens as a Bayleef steps forward.

"Well, I live here, at this house -" he nods his head aggressively towards the wall "- and I can swear to you I witnessed them just appear out of nowhere," he tells me. A wave of confusion washes through the crowd, but it's enough for Rena and I to piece together the evidence. A group of fainted Pokemon, who were transported here by unknown means, all knocked out after having fought some water Pokemon... Seems like a group being escorted by the Rapidash to Augue ran into an unexpected Mystery Dungeon and got overwhelmed, then the dungeon dumped them here... that also means that the dungeon threshold is, like, right on Augue's wall.

"Rena," I start to say, but she raises a hand.

"I already told Uxie about the new Mystery Dungeon. She says she's sending a healer for these three Pokemon, and told us not to allow anyone through the west gate under any circumstances," she informs me. "I think they'll be okay, thankfully."

 _Well, at least water-type Pokemon don't do that much physical damage,_ I think to myself, staring at the three fainted Pokemon at my feet. _Who knows, they could've gotten themselves into a dungeon with a bunch of poisonous Pokemon..._ The thought of them being in a catatonic state (or worse) for days after makes me shudder. "Thanks for reporting it, Tepig," I tell him loudly, then turn to address the now-thinning crowd. "If any of you find other fainted Pokemon like this, please come to the west terminal and let me, Rena, here, or another member of the Vis know."

So now we get to deal with a bunch of random Pokemon appearing unconscious in the streets and scaring everyone, as if the tension wasn't already high enough. Maybe, as Moltres had said, the Vis will eventually become reputable enough to make people feel safe, but the progress on that will definitely be hampered as people find out about the new dungeon right next to them... I didn't even think something like that was possible. Uxie had been saying that dungeons couldn't pop up near more populated areas, but I guess that's wrong. I hope none of the teams I sent out today were caught by it...

 **Omiah**

 **Flooded Road, F10**

Christ, I just want something to happen. The silent four following me are _actually scaring me,_ at this point - I dunno about the other three, but I can say for a fact that, by now, Mello would have struck up some sort of conversation under normal circumstances. And, if any of them do decide to speak up, it doesn't even need to be pleasant. I'd honestly enjoy it if they griped their opinions on how shitty this whole situation is, just so that I know that they're alive or something.

I'd also appreciate some sort of indication that we're making progress. Every single floor has been exactly the same as the last - rock slabs lain across dirt islands with odd bridges interconnecting them, and not a single other Pokemon in sight. Have we been trapped in an endless cycle?

And then, it doesn't really help that I'm still damp after diving in after Mello, either.

At this point, I just want to be able to go home. As in, _home_ home, with my family and my bed, where there aren't any "Mystery Dungeons" and I don't have to worry about being a Pokemon, which _still_ seems weird to think about, even though I've been one... been a Riolu for 2 days, now, I guess. I just want to know how something like this happens, and then I want to know why it happens to a guy like me...

"Hey, look!" My ears brighten as I hear the little owl speak up behind me. Her voice points across a jumpable gap between the bridge we stand on and the platform across to our right. I guess it sees something, maybe the stairs... What else is there to see? I decide to leap over, not without a running start, and am followed only by the little bird, who hovers across the gap in a big mess of light green feathers.

"Omi!" Mello cries once we have ourselves situated. If but barely, I can see his face in the fog. It doesn't really look happy (though mine doesn't either, I guess).

"Just... stay there!" I tell him, then turn around to see the little bird hopping over to an obscured object on the ground. I take a couple of cautious paces towards it. _Could be a Pokemon,_ I consider, _or maybe... it's just a little trinket?_ If she found someone's belonging, that means they might be nearby... or that they got attacked and ran...

Kneeling down, I can tell it's an oran berry. Someone definitely dropped this, whether they did so accidentally or were forced to by another Pokemon. I glance around, making sure nothing is sneaking up on us or something, but it's pretty hard to tell when I can see a maximum of 5 feet in front of myself.

I pick the berry up, turning it over in my palm (is it a palm, though?). It seems okay, I guess. I might not eat it for a snack, but who knows? We may get desperate here, if this dungeon is much longer. "Good find," I compliment the owl, expecting her to be by my side, but instead, she's moved on to what seems to be another item.

 _Well, whoever came through here must have had a hole in their bag or something..._ I think as she hops away from the second oran berry to an odd chunk of crystal. I pick up the oran berry - why not - and kneel to inspect the strange crystal. She tries to pick it up, but pulls her claw away from it before it makes contact.

"Hot," she announces, taking instead to looking at it from a distance.

I reach in for a second to confirm her claim, and after holding one of my fingers on it for a couple of seconds, determine that she's right to an extent. I can grab it without getting burnt, so I do. It's just a chunk of translucent red rock, like a red quartz, emanating heat constantly. _So... it's just a less powerful version of that flame orb thing in Mello's bag..._ I glance to my side, where the little owl is looking cautiously around for other trinkets. I begin a quick sweep of the rest of the little platform as well, but those three things were all that were dropped.

"Good job," I say again to the bird, who hops along by my side. All she manages to respond with is a little dip with her head.

We return to the side that was closest to the bridge where Mello and the other two are. I leap back across, landing barely on the dirt bank, then my heart drops. They're not here. I swear inwardly, then scold myself as I realize I shouldn't be vulgar in front of a kid like this. She flaps clumsily over the gap, then lands heavily, rolling over once before stabilizing. As she realizes something's wrong, she gives a little gasp.

"Where did Midas go?" She asks me, eyes filled with fright. I take the name to mean the Ivysaur.

Disbelieving, I shake my head. "Dunno," I tell her, looking fruitlessly around. All my eyes are met with is fog, as expected. _Why would they split up? Did we take that long?_ I ask noone. _I mean, I guess it was my fault for leaving them, but they could be a_ little _more patient..._

Without another word, I set briskly off in the direction we'd been heading. They can't have gone far. Behind me, the little bird struggles to keep up, hopping along as fast as her short little legs can manage.

"Omi!"

A distant cry races through the dungeon, followed by an noise almost indiscernible from the gentle touching of the water to the steep banks. My heart stops for a moment as I try to listen further... Another plaintive yell comes from my left - it's Mello's voice, and they're not that far away...

I drop the berries I carry in one hand, grab hold of the Pokemon behind me in that arm and sprint along the narrow pathway with a hard clutch on the warm crystal, drift through a right turn and down an extensive passage before I catch sight of the group. There they are, backed into a corner, within sight of the staircase... fighting another enormous Pokemon, this one at least somewhat humanoid, backed up against the bank as it lobs obscured mounds at them. "Go for the stairs," I whisper to the little bird, setting her down and pointing to the vague shape in the distance. _If this thing is as hefty as the Milotic was, we should just run instead of trying a fight..._ But then, what can I do? Does it even _matter?_ I have to act, and I have to act fast. My heart wrenches itself apart as I realize the only way to get them an exit is to attack the thing, if but briefly.

The adrenaline comes in waves, so I pick one and ride it towards the behemoth Pokemon, picking up as much speed as I possibly can before I jump and extend my feet, flying through the air a good distance. The ball of my foot hits it on the side of the hip, and it falls backward. In midair I right myself, then land as lightly as I can.

"Go!" _Their window should be good enough,_ I tell myself as the giant blue thing slowly gets up. I run after the group that has already disappeared into the mist above the stairs, not wanting to face the thing without the factor of surprise. I barely knocked it over with that advantage.

 **Via Coi**

To my right, a gently flowing river, with moving water instead of stagnant pools, making river noises like a river should. To my left, a fairly dense forest, with trees and bushes, half-heartedly swaying in a breeze I could swear I hadn't felt in a lifetime. My heart pulls itself in two once I realize I'm no longer inside of the God-forsaken dungeon, one half thumping vigorously with energy, one half attempting to relax. No longer do I have to feel the weight of the dungeon's atmosphere pressing on me.

"Good Arceus above, Omi!" Mello exclaims as he bounds towards me. His demeanor and tone are completely different, though he still shows a bit of residual apprehension. The three others follow him, sharing his half-weary expression. "I don't know how much longer we could've lasted with that Swampert..."

"Yeah, that was a pretty bold move," adds Midas, nodding his oversized head up and down. Suddenly he pauses. "...What's that sound?"

Ah, that's me... I guess, this whole time, I've been making my odd, yet-to-be-explained droning sound. Luckily it isn't too loud. I wonder how loud it was when I was amped up just a second ago...? I make a greater effort to calm myself down. _Deep breaths,_ I tell myself. _We're done._

"It's Omi. It just happens whenever he battles," explains Mello once he realizes I'm not going to answer.

"Huh. Never seen a Riolu make a noise like that," Midas says with a laugh. He turns to the two littler Pokemon by his side. "You two good?"

They both nod.

"Well, I didn't actually catch either of your names. Y'know, not formally. I'm Midas."

"I'm Mello," the Luxio standing next to him says. I can already see him regaining the brightness he lacked throughout the dungeon.

I nod. "Omiah," I tell, holding out a hand for him to shake, then awkwardly pulling it back once I realize he can't shake it.

Not wanting to be left out, the two kids jump in.

"I'm Glomer," says the little shroom-looking one.

"My name is Rass," finishes the owl proudly.

Silence falls over us, allowing the trickling river and the breeze to fully reach my ears. It's odd hearing this kind of natural ambience after going so long without it.

"Arceus, what time is it?" Midas says, looking up into the orange-red sky. In fact, the sun is setting, even though we got sucked into the dungeon when it wasn't even past noon yet. "Well, not making it to Calista today, I guess..."

"Well, we should at least get into Augue," decides Mello. "I think we can be safe behind those walls."

Sure enough, a short walk into the distance, a brick wall stands sturdy. "Yeah," I agree. "I think I'd like to be safe for a while."

 **Effio**

 **WB Server Room**

 _Ok, calm down,_ I tell myself as I stare impatiently into the vibrant red portal that ate my boss' Arcanine about 15 minutes ago. _Gardevoir must just be getting him set up._ How long does it take, through? She knows what to do, I set the comm crystal in there up to send her the instructions every time the machine starts up. What if the crystal isn't working? Then that means she's fainted for absolutely no reason and that Arcanine might just be trapped inside of the gate for a long while (forever).

I pace back and forth, grab my caffeine fix from off the floor, take a swig of its berry flavored liquid, wince, then pace around some more. Rinse, repeat, waiting for something to happen. The temperatures on the terminal all seem pretty stable, miraculously. Maybe I did something right on the first try, maybe it'll all be okay. Maybe once Arcanine is in, Gardevoir can just pull him back out and I won't get my ass beaten tomorrow by Dom. Although, maybe Dom's just completely forgotten about the Arcanine at this point... it wouldn't exactly surprise me. A caffeine rush forces me to shudder a little.

Suddenly, the various fans begin to speed up, taking the moderately annoying din up to a constant scream, accompanied by a heated gale that tears through my hair. My eyes lock immediately to the terminal, where, sure enough, the temperatures have begun increasing again - slowly but surely, the bars inch towards the upper limit, and they're not stopping, not even slowing down. I glance nervously down at Gardevoir, who still hasn't woken up yet, then over again to the now-wavering red portal, half expecting it to spit Arcanine back out.

Then everything shuts down. That includes the machine, the terminal, and my heart. _Fuck. What does that mean happened to Arcanine?_ The rushing sound of silence lingers in my ears for a few seconds as they accustom to not having a constant stimulus. I straighten out my t-shirt and look at the suddenly dark room, only able to see all the green blinking status diodes on the server stacks on the opposite wall.

A gasp from beside me forces a start from me. Gardevoir, now confused, pushes herself up to a sitting position.

"What happened?" I ask her as my heart starts beating again.

 **I'm not quite sure...** she begins. **I got to her and got all of the information I was supposed to, but when I sent the stuff through to the machine, something broke.**

Now that it's moving again, I can feel every beat my heart makes, partially because the caffeine, partially because the notion that I lost Arcanine forever. "Did she make it in?" I ask. A new wave of regret washes through me as I realize I probably don't want to know the answer.

 **I... Yes,** she tells me. I'm going to go ahead and take her word for it. Maybe that's too big of an assumption, but that's all I can go off of right now. Now the original problem still remains: I have to deal with getting Arcanine back out.

 **Omiah**

 **Augue, West Gate**

The wall is... pretty big. To the left, at least. To the right lies a giant lake, which cuts the wall abruptly short. I wonder how they managed to set the entire thing up - it's in a bunch of enormous rectangular sections, like the road I walk on now but 30 times taller. Maybe they carved it out of a rock formation that was already here, or something. I don't particularly want to look stupid in front of Midas and his two little tag-alongs, so I refrain from asking Mello what's up. I'll just have to wait until we get settled into Augue to ask questions, of which I have a small handful. Wait - Mello said we'd be staying with his friend... So I might not even have a chance to ask in private then, either. I sigh, wishing I'd asked more questions on the way over. Before we got... annexed by the Mystery Dungeon.

"Midas? What is a Mystery Dungeon, exactly?" I ask, figuring the person who gave the name would know.

"I dunno," he slurs. "They're like this... spatial anomaly, y'know, like Uxie would put it."

I refrain from asking who Uxie is, getting the feeling from him that I should just know.

Mello takes a turn after he doesn't elaborate. "When did these things start appearing?"

"Like, a few days ago? Not sure about that one either, I just know at some point a few Pokemon ended up unconscious around Stiria, then woke up talking about a maze. It kept on happening, that day, in the exact same spot, too. And it kept getting worse - there were Pokemon turning up fainted all over the mountainside, broke, like, money-wise, and with missing belongings. A lot of them were pretty badly hurt." Midas explains.

"Arceus, that's awful!" Mello says with a scowl.

"Yeah," Midas continues. "Articuno himself went to see what the problem was - he got sucked into a dungeon alone. When he made it out he ordered everyone in Stiria not to travel until these mazes, he called them Mystery Dungeons, were gone. The next day he got a group of Pokemon together to leave the city and check to see if the dungeons were still there. They went to where all the Pokemon had been turning up and got sucked into a dungeon again. After gettin past that, they headed south and hit another one almost immediately. A couple more and they just decided to hole up in Stiria again and hope they went away."

"So no one knows why they're popping up?" asks Mello, earning a head shake from the Ivysaur.

"Not even Lugia."

 _Jeez, now he's just throwing around names,_ I think to myself, reminded further that I know nothing about this world. Or Pokemon, I guess. It's gonna be a while until I can add anything useful to these kinds of conversations, so I guess I have a bunch of listening to do. Hopefully I can piece stuff together.

Mello sighs, renewing the talk. "So are these Mystery Dungeons just popping up *everywhere* now? You only talked about Stiria."

"Yeah. After a couple of days, they started to appear in Calista Valley, freaked people out. Including Lugia, again," Midas goes on. "The next day - 4 days ago - when they spread even further, she decided to organize a little... task force, you could say, that she named the Vis, whose purpose was to go around and document where all of the Mystery Dungeons were. I dunno how much you know -"

"I've been out of the way for a pretty long time, just keep explaining," Mello interrupts, busy soaking in the information about the whole predicament.

"Kay. The Vis kinda evolved into a sort of an escort service, so that Pokemon could travel safely. No one trusts the Vis well enough, though, so they're all keeping to the city. Unless they get really desperate, I guess. I mean, I only joined yesterday, so I may be wrong, but -"

"Seems reasonable," I find the place to say. "It sounds like the whole thing was blown a little out of proportion. Are the Mystery Dungeons really that dangerous?" _We went through three and only one really overwhelmed us,_ I almost say, but figure it'd be kinda braggy.

"Well, yeah," Midas says. "We got super lucky back there. I think if we'd had to fight anything other than the Milotic and the... whatever that thing was, we would've gotten... well, you know. And then we would have ended up out in the middle of nowhere with what meager berries I have for food, not to mention that a bunch of them would be missing. Also, water type Pokemon don't really hurt that much. If we'd run into... a fire type dungeon, say, we probably would've been badly hurt. I've heard of a few deaths because of these things."

"Fair enough," I concede, then remember Mello's stuff back in the forest. Maybe Midas has the real answer to what happened. "What did you mean 'a bunch of them would be missing'?"

"Well, according to all the Pokemon that got KO'd in the dungeons, it kinda... took a bunch of their items. And all of their money," he explains, then checks his own bag. "It should only be happening to the ones that fail to get through, so we should be okay..."

As he confirms the conjecture, Mello makes my connection. "Right! That'd explain why all our berries were missing after the forest."

 _And your money,_ I add silently.

"So you guys have seen a Mystery Dungeon before?" Midas asks, pausing his perusing.

Mello nods, standing a little taller. "Yeah, two. And we made it through one of them. Two now."

With a suspicious look, Midas glances at me. I nod in confirmation.

"Huh. Well, you guys will probably want to let the Vis know about them. Where were they?"

"They were east of here, probably due of Parvus." Mello's head swings towards dark end of the sky, opposite to the massive wall we now face.

We continue into a arch tunnel, lit with odd-looking torch things mounted to each side. Now I can tell the wall is even thicker than it looks from the outside. On one hand, the metal grate a few yards away solidifies the medieval vibe the tunnel gives me, but looking through the grate in a circular, similarly round room with a ring of futuristic, yellow glowing rock in the ceiling, connected to the arch doorway. I decide not to comment on it, instead committing it to my mental list of "things Mello will explain when he has time".

The first voice echoes faintly through the tunnel, a woman's, older. "...never said anything about people coming *in,*" she finishes saying, out of sight. The grate rises into the ceiling after a _clink_ and a reeling that make me jump a little. I didn't really realize I was on edge, but, come to think of it, _this is an entire city of Pokemon._ An entire city that was built, populated with, and run by strange creatures with odd abilities. How close it'll be to a city back home (or at least, what I can recall) I don't know. All that has to happen is I need to not get involved in any interactions.

The wall of the main room is tan up until it reaches the glowing yellow band circling the ceiling, where it turns into the same off-grey color of the rock wall. The only thing coming out of the floor is a counter, one we pass through to fully enter the room, one manned by a green, two-legged Pokemon with a black scarf resting on the frills of its neck. Mounted on the wall behind her is a dark green board, which probably holds some sort of list. I couldn't tell, whatever the blocky lime-colored writing on there is isn't English. ...Or any language that I'd recognize, for that matter. In the opposite end of the room, next to the open arch doorway, a cat-like Pokemon sits perfectly crosslegged, studying us as we enter with two stretched, slitted green eyes. I do my best to not stare at it.

As we situate ourselves in front of the counter, Mello strides up next to me. "Breloom, Meowstic," he whispers, flicking his head first towards the Pokemon behind the counter, then at the cat opposite from her. I look at him quizzically for a moment before I realize he's telling me their names.

"Thanks," I whisper back.

Midas steps in front of all of us, leaving the two girls at our side. "Midas?" Breloom says, looking over her list. "You're supposed to be out with... Rass and Glomer, right?"

"Well, yeah..." Midas affirms, somewhat timidly. Is this Pokemon important enough to boss him around? "I was, but then we kinda got trapped in a Mystery Dungeon."

The Pokemon's face scrunches up. "I was hoping you wouldn't get caught... Must've been right on it's horizon as it appeared, then. Where'd you get pulled in?"

"The bridge."

"Huh. And where'd you wake up? So far all the Pokemon have been spit out in the wall's limits," she says, looking out the arch doorway behind us.

"Uh, well... we made it through," Midas reports hesitantly. I realize why when I see the confused look on her face. She probably thinks he's lying.

"Wait, so you and two other little greenies cleared a dungeon that bested a Charizard and a Flygon together?" She challenges loudly, turning her head slightly to the left.

"We helped, too!" Mello insists, stepping forward.

Midas pauses again. "...Charizard?" he repeats, his own brow furrowing. "No way..."

"Yeah," continues Breloom, "and that's not the only team that's turned up unconscious today. I think we're up to 5, right Rena?"

For the first time, the cat Pokemon (Espurr, I guess), speaks up. Kinda. "Yes," she says absently, staring into the yellow light of the band in the ceiling like she'd been doing since we'd walked in the room.

"Yeah. None of 'em were very weak, either," Breloom adds.

A creaking makes me jump again, but this time it isn't the grate, but a door I hadn't noticed next to where the counter ends. My mouth drops open when two other Pokemon enter. I didn't expect to see a dragon here, much less _two._ But then, what did I expect?

One of them is green with diamond wings folded behind its back, the other orange with a long tail whose tip is on fire. She called them Flygon and Charizard? ...I decide that the one on fire is Charizard and the other is the Flygon.

"We heard our names," Flygon, a woman, probably older than all of us, speaks. She doesn't really even have to make a very aggressive phrase to sound intimidating. But then, maybe that's just me.

The Breloom laughs, and I wonder what we ever did to her to deserve this level of ridicule. "Yeah, you did - this little group here beat the dungeon."

The two freeze. Breloom watches eagerly for their reaction. For a moment there's a still in the room, a long and agonizing one, ...and then they break into laughter.

I mean, I guess we don't have any way to prove that we actually did make it out alive... Oh, except for the stuff the owl and I picked up on our way. I kinda forgot about it, the red gem I clutch in my fingers. I shake my head a little and take a breath. "I can prove it," comes out of my mouth, a little quiet, but a visibly unhappy Mello takes notice.

"Omi can prove it!" He says defiantly, quieting the laughter down a little bit.

I nod and raise the gem in my index fingers, as high as it will go. As my arm lifts into the air I realize how little this means, and how stupid it looks. Hastily I begin to explain, "It was on the last floor of the dungeon -"

I notice Charizard has stopped laughing completely. In fact, he's frozen in place, gazing agape at my find. He cuts me off before I finish redeeming our case. "The last floor, eh?" His voice, though he tries to be quiet, somehow still fills the room. He takes a couple of steps towards me and I swear I can feel the impacts under me. I offer the gem to him to study and he takes it from me, rolling it around in his own hand. "Yep," he says, his voice passively heavy, "it's the fire gem, alright."

The Flygon behind him gasps, and with a buzz hovers over to him to look as well. Normally I'd be gawking at how fast her wings oscillate when she begins flying, but I'm too worried about the gem and how that might've been our saving grace after all. And that means that the owl - Rass - is the reason they believe us at all. They must've dropped it when they got beaten, then, on the last floor. Lucky for them, we were close enough behind to find it.

"You didn't tell me you found that," Mello whispers to me as the two dragons inspect the gem.

"Well, it's not like the dungeon gave me any time to tell you," I respond, still a little apprehensive.

"Riolu," the Charizard says. My head snaps toward his, like a deer's would in headlights. "You said that you found this on the last floor of the dungeon."

I nod.

As he breaks eye contact I release a breath I guess I was holding since when he addressed me. "So that means we were almost out of the dungeon," he tells his partner, who sighs and shakes her head.

"And we would've if not for the two Gyrados!"

"So it's true that this group here made it through the dungeon?" asks Charizard.

I nod behind Mello and Midas' emphatic "Yes!"

"Huh. Well, I was wrong," Breloom admits. "Good work, Midas, getting them out of there, then."

"...I didn't get us out," he says, to my surprise. His voice is a borderline whisper. "Omi did."

My heart tries to escape my chest while everyone's eyes fall excruciatingly on me. I guess they're waiting for a confirmation, one I hesitate to give.

"Wait... You're telling me an untrained Riolu kid successfully led the way through a dungeon that beat two Vis-renowned dragons?" Breloom challenges.

Untrained? Uh, well... yeah, I guess that's accurate. Kid? Maybe not as much... I just wish this person would be less of an asshole.

"He did," Mello affirms again. "We got separated from him, and then we immediately ran into a Swampert. We couldn't fight it. If he hadn't found us, we wouldn't have made it through."

"I mean, you guys found the stairs -" I start to say, but Flygon cuts me off.

"Wait - Omi, right? You fended off a Swampert alone?" She says excitedly.

I frown. Mello's quick rendition of the events did make it seem like that, I guess. I shake my head and give my set of details. "I just surprised it... and luckily that opened a window for a group dash for the stairs."

"Surprised it?" Mello exclaims. "You knocked the thing over!"

"Well, yeah," I admit, "but it was getting back up. I wasn't gonna stay for that, I just ran after you all up the stairs..." Besides, we got lucky as hell going up. We might've been able to handle... 2 more encounters? There's not much telling, but we only saw two other Pokemon in the dungeon. I can almost guarantee the two dragons found (and defeated) a lot more than that.

If it wasn't silent, I wouldn't have been able to hear Breloom's sigh. "I guess we can put you in one of the spare rooms back there... It's not much, now that I consider how much you helped Midas out... How's that?"

"Okay!" Mello adds a quick nod, one he pauses in the middle of and swivels back to me. "Yeah?"

I shrug. It's not like I know what to do.

 **Augue, West Terminal**

Luckily they keep some amount of food in the little bedrooms back here. I had a singular berry for breakfast, and that stupid Mystery Dungeon took a lot out of me, so I was definitely glad when we were shown to our room to see that there was a basket filled with berries in the corner. I think Mello was too, considering how the first thing he did was stuff an entire oran berry into his mouth without hesitating. He continues to chew on it now. I think maybe he regrets his decision.

Also, luckily, we got put in a room separate from the two dragons and Midas. I've been interaction-ed out for now, overwhelmed by a lot of different things. Returning home is looking better and better as my time in this world passes... and I haven't even made it into the city, really. What other kinds of Pokemon are there? By now, I've seen Pokemon that resemble animals, some bugs, some mammals, some even mythical beasts. And then there was the one - well, two, including Glomer - that looked like a mushroom. And Midas, who carries a giant bulb on his back. Is that a part of his body...? I glance over at Mello. Relative to all that, he looks pretty normal. Even relative to me. Dropping down to walk on all four of my appendages seems unnatural, even though I'm a... dog. That's sure not normal. Are there even weirder Pokemon out there? ...Are there more dragons? Because I'd like to see those.

And then, I don't even have the start of a plan for what I'm going to do. Am I just going to follow Mello around aimlessly until I find a way to get back home? I've been riding his back for a while now, and I can't imagine he's too happy about that. But then, what else can I do? I don't have money, I don't have a place to go, and I don't even have any idea how this world works. Even if I was able to learn stuff from Mello, find a job and become independent, what would I do then? Search for a way to get back home? How do I even _start_ to look for a way back home?

Is it even possible to go back?

It's a miracle I've been able to keep the whole predicament off my mind until now, but now that I'm thinking about it, I can't help but shudder. The height of my questions, they terrify me. What if I'm trapped here, what if I never see my family again? I try to remember what they look like, but draw blank. All I can remember about my family is that I was pretty distant from them... and I guess I only realize that when they're gone and I have no way to get to them. Also, I kinda miss having thumbs - being human again wouldn't be that bad, either.

"You okay, Omi?" Mello has finished his berry, the the look of it. Am I making a weird expression? Oh... I guess my hum has slipped loose again, droning faintly above the ambience of the breeze through the little window. That'd do it.

I straighten up and nod. "Can I ask you something? Well, more than something."

"Uh huh. You're probably pretty confused, right?"

I nod again. Pretty confused probably doesn't cut it, even closely. It takes me a while to find the correct words. "What should I do? Like, if I want to become... self-sufficient?" It feels odd saying that, because I'm pretty sure I had a few more years before I had to go off into the world alone back home... a few more years where I could do what I wanted without fear of adult shit. I guess it's different here.

Mello's face furrows slowly into a frown. I guess that didn't sit well with him...? "What, are you gonna go off on your own?"

"I guess. I mean, I can't just keep following you around everywhere..." I say, not exactly understanding why I'm tearing up. I should be a little less feely than this.

Mello tilts his head slightly. "Why not?" he asks, and continues before I have a chance to respond. "I was... actually planning on joining the Vis. As a team with you."

Wait. Why me, of all people? Aren't there other, more experienced, stronger Pokemon he could ask? That maybe aren't clueless?

I don't make it hard for him to see my concern, and he keeps going. "I was going to go find a job anyway, and it seems like you know enough about fighting to make your way through these Mystery Dungeons."

My eyes narrow. "But why me? What about your friend? Like, the one I thought we were going to go see tonight?" Or anyone else that actually knows what they're doing?

"Oh, Lyra's already occupied. And then, you're human, that's what you said, right?"

I nod. Used to be human. Not anymore.

"And you're from an entirely different world?"

I shrug this time. "I guess."

"So you don't know anything about this one. How were you going to move forward?"

Another shrug. "That's why I was asking you."

"Then just stick with me!" He says with a smile. "We can join the Vis together. I'm pretty sure I can help you out."

"Are you sure... you're willing to do that?" Are you sure you want to spend that much time showing me what's what? Are you sure you want to sacrifice all your other options to carry me around? Is this not a commitment, one that you're treating like it's no big deal? Especially considering you met me by chance, and had no other moral choice but to help me out.

Maybe you were planning on doing this from the moment we met. Who knows?

He closes his eyes and smiles even brighter, nodding a little. "Also, it's not like a human pops up in this world all the time." A chuckle follows the words. "I can't help but think that, if I stick with you, _something_ is bound to happen."

I guess that's right. If I keep trying to discover why I'm here, I'll eventually run into something. I have to.

He goes on. "I mean, it has to be a god that sent you here, right? Do you remember anything about how you ended up here?"

A god? Are there multiple gods for Pokemon? I mean... there was a voice. In my head - it was loud. It said it was supposed to ask me questions, right? And that it needed help... It couldn't have been a god asking me for help, that's absurd. It did mention Arceus, though... "Who is Arceus?" I ask, ignoring his question.

Mello gasps, his eyes suddenly bulging out of their places. "No way. Were you sent here by Arceus?"

"No," I respond. It wasn't Arceus, the voice was just... praying to Arceus? Yeah, she was praying to Arceus because she made some sort of mistake... And I can't remember what mistake she made.

Was her mistake sending me? Am I not even supposed to be here?

"Oh, well. Arceus is the creator, the original Pokemon. He made everything," Mello explains.

So Arceus is _the_ god. "Is Arceus a she?"

Mello shrugs. "No one knows, no one has ever seen Arceus. Why?"

"Before I woke up here, I heard a voice. It was a woman," I tell him. That sounds weird. "She asked me to help, but didn't give me details. Then she said she made a mistake, and that's all I remember. From that, at least."

Mello thinks for a moment with a furrowed brow. "Well, maybe she wanted help with the Mystery Dungeons. I mean, we got trapped in one the moment I found you." Suddenly he grins. "Another reason to join the Vis with me!"

I can't help but laugh. "I guess you're right."

"So you will?" He asks eagerly.

I give him a nod, as confidently as I can. "Not like there's much else I can do."


End file.
